The Moghul

by Thomas Hoover

  *

  Hawksworth sipped from the new cup of wine, his third, and watched the musicians begin to retune. Around him the members of Arangbar's inner circle were assembling in the Diwan-i-Khas. This must be evening dress in Agra, he marveled: silk turbans studded with rubies and sapphires, diamond earrings, swords trimmed in gold and silver, pearl necklaces, cloaks of rich brocade, velvet slippers. The faces around him all betrayed the indolent eyes and pasty cheeks of men long indulged in rich food, hard spirits, sensuality.

  It was, he now realized, the fairyland that Symmes had described that freezing day so long ago in the offices of the Levant Company. What man not a Papist monk could resist the worldly seductions of the Moghul’s court?

  Then he remembered the brave Pathan who had been torn apart by a lion that very afternoon, while all Arangbar's nobles watched unprotesting.

  On the signal of a eunuch standing by the doorway the dummer suddenly pounded out a loud, rhythmic fanfare, and then the sitarist took up a martial motif. The brocade drapery hanging inside a marble archway at the back of the room was drawn aside by a guard and a moment later Arangbar swept into the room. The courtiers all bowed in the teslim, rising with their hands on their forehead.

  Arangbar had changed to evening dress. He wore a dark velvet turban encrusted with jewels, tight-fitting patterned trousers beneath a transparent muslin skirt, and a gold brocade cinch at his waist. He clapped his hands in delight when he saw Hawksworth holding a wine cup.

  "The ambassador has already tasted our Persian wine. How do you find it, Ambassador . . . Khaw . . . ?" He stumbled over the name. "Wait. The first thing we must do is rename you. Henceforth we will call you 'Inglish.' Now, have we pronounced that properly?"

  "Perfectly, Your Majesty. And, so please Your Majesty, the wine is excellent, though perhaps not as sweet as the wines of Europe."

  "Every feringhi says the same, Inglish. But we will civilize you. And also teach you something about painting." He seized a glass of wine from a waiting eunuch and then shouted to Nadir Sharif, who had entered moments before from the back. "Where are my five paintings?"

  "I'm told they will be ready before Your Majesty retires. The painters are still hard at work, so please Your Majesty."

  "It does not please me, but then I have no wager." He roared with amusement. "Your stables will be reduced by a prize stallion come morning if the paintings are not ready soon. Look to it."

  As Nadir Sharif bowed in acknowledgment, Arangbar whirled to Hawksworth.

  "Tell me something about your king, Inglish? How many wives does he have? We have hundreds."

  "He has but one, Your Majesty, and I believe she is mostly for show. King James prefers the company of young men."

  "Very like most Christians I've met. And you, Inglish. Have you any wives?" Arangbar had already finished his first glass of wine and taken a second.

  "I have none, Your Majesty."

  "But you, I suspect, are not a Jesuit, or a eunuch."

  "No, Your Majesty."

  "Then we shall find you a wife, Inglish." He took a ball of opium and washed it down with wine. "No, we will find you two. Yes, you shall be well wived."

  "May it please Your Majesty, I have no means to care for a wife. I am here for only a season." Hawksworth shifted uncomfortably.

  "You will only leave Agra, Inglish, when it is our pleasure. But if you will not have a wife, you must at least have a house."

  "I am arranging it now, Your Majesty."

  Arangbar looked at Hawksworth sharply, then continued as though he had not heard.

  "Now tell us more about your king. We would know what he's like."

  Hawksworth bowed as he tried to collect his thoughts. The wine was already toying with his brain. Although most of what he knew about King James was hearsay, he knew he did not care for England's new king overly much. No English subject did. And idle seamen had reason to dislike him the most of all. He was not the sovereign Elizabeth had been.

  "He's of middle stature, Your Majesty, not overly fat though he seems so since he always wears quilted, stiletto-proof doublets."

  Arangbar seemed surprised. "Is he not safe? Has he no guards?"

  "He's a prudent man, Your Majesty, as befits a sovereign." And, Hawksworth thought, also a coward, if you believe the talk in London. What all men know for fact, though, is that he's a weakling, whose legs are so spindly he has to be helped to walk, leaning on other men's shoulders while he fiddles spastically with his codpiece.

  "Does your king wear many jewels, Ambassador Inglish?"

  "Of course, Your Majesty." Hawksworth drank calmly from his wine cup, hoping the lie would pass unnoticed.

  What would the Moghul think if he knew the truth, Hawksworth asked himself? That King James of England only changes his clothes when they are rags, and his fashion never. He was once, they say, given a Spanish-style hat, and he cast it away, swearing he loved neither them nor their fashions. Another time he was given shoes with brocade roses on them, and he railed at the giver, asking if he was to be made a ruff-footed dove.

  "Is your king generous of nature, Ambassador? We are loved by our people because we give of our bounty on every holy day. Baskets of silver rupees are flung down the streets of Agra."

  "King James is giving also, Your Majesty." With the moneys of others. He'd part willingly with a hundred pounds not in his own keeping before he'd release ten shillings from his private purse. And it's said he'd rather spend a hundred thousand pounds on embassies abroad, buying peace with bribes, than ten thousand on an army that would enforce peace with honor. "He is a man among men, Your Majesty, admired and loved by all his subjects."

  "As are we, Ambassador." Arangbar took another ball of opium and washed it down with a third glass of wine. "Tell me, does your king drink spirits?"

  "It is said he drinks often, Your Majesty, though many declare it is more out of custom than delight. He drinks strong liquors—Frontiniack, Canary, High Canary wine, Tent wine, Scottish ale—but never, it's said, more than a few spoonfuls."

  "Then he could never drink with the Moghul of India, Ambassador. We have twenty cups of wine a night. And twelve grains of opium." Arangbar paused as he accepted yet another glass. His voice had begun to slur slightly. "But perhaps your king can trade with me. When will the ships from your king's next voyage arrive? And how many of your king's frigates will we see yearly if we grant him the trading firman he requests?"

  Hawksworth noticed out of the corner of his eye that Nadir Sharif had now moved directly beside him. The prime minister held a glass of wine from which he sipped delicately. Around him the other courtiers were already drinking heavily, to the obvious approval of Arangbar.

  He'll not finish a single glass of wine, if my guess is right. Nadir Sharif’ll find a way to stay stone sober while the rest of the room sinks into its cups. And they'll all be too drunk to notice.

  "King James will one day send an armada of frigates, Your Majesty." Keep Arangbar's mind off the next voyage. He just may try to hold you here until it comes, or refuse to grant a firman until he sees the next batch of presents. "His Majesty, King James, is always eager to trade the seas where his ships are welcome."

  "Even if other nations of Europe would quarrel with his rights to those seas?"

  "England has no quarrels in Europe, Your Majesty. If you refer to the engagement off Surat, you should know that was caused by a misunderstanding of the treaties that now exist in Europe. England is at peace with all her neighbors."

  A skeptical silence seemed to envelop the room. Arangbar took another cup of wine and drank it off. Then he turned to Hawksworth.

  "The matter, Ambassador Inglish, does not seem to us to be that simple. But we will examine it more later. Nights are made for beauty, days for affairs of state." Arangbar's voice had begun to slur even more noticeably. "You may have heard there will be a wedding here soon. My youngest prince is betrothed to the daughter of my queen. The wedding will be held one month after my own birthday c
elebration, and it will be an event to remember. Tonight I begin the always-pleasant task of selecting the women who will dance. Do you know anything of Indian dance?"

  "Very little, Your Majesty. I have only seen it once. In Surat. At a gathering one evening at the palace of the Shahbandar."

  Arangbar roared and seized another glass of wine. "I can well imagine the kind of entertainment the Shahbandar of Surat provides for his guests. No, Ambassador, I mean the real dance of India. The dance of great artists? Perhaps you have classical dance in England?"

  "No, Your Majesty. We have nothing similar. At least similar to the dance I saw."

  "Then a pleasant surprise awaits you." Arangbar exam­ined Hawksworth's cup and motioned for a servant to refill it. "Drink up, Inglish. The evening is only beginning."

  Arangbar clapped drunkenly and the guests began to settle themselves around the bolsters that had been strewn about the carpet. An ornate silk pillow was provided for each man to rest against, and a number of large hookahs, each with several mouthpieces, were lighted and stationed about the room. The servants also distributed garlands of yellow flowers, and as Nadir Sharif took his place next to Hawksworth, he wrapped one of the garlands about his left wrist. With the other hand he set down his wineglass, still full, and signaled a servant to replenish Hawksworth's. Arangbar was reclining now on the throne, against his own bolster, and the oil lamps around the side of the room were lowered, leaving illumination only on the musicians and on a bare spot in the center of the carpet. The air was rich with the aroma of roses as servants passed shaking rosewater on the guests from long-necked silver decanters.

  The musicians were completing their tuning, and Hawksworth noticed that now there were two drummers, a sitar player, and a new musician holding a sarangi. In the background another man sat methodically strumming a simple upright instrument, shaped like the sitar save it provided nothing more than a low-pitched droning, against which the other instruments had been tuned. Next a man entered, wearing a simple white shirt, and settled himself on the carpet in front of the musicians. As silence gripped the room, Arangbar signaled to the seated man with his wineglass and the man began to sing a low, soulful melody that seemed to consist of only a few syllables. "Ga, Ma, Pa." The voice soared upward. "Da, Ni, Sa." After a few moments Hawksworth guessed he must be singing the names of the notes in the Indian scale. They were virtually identical to the Western scale, except certain notes seemed to be a few microtones higher or lower, depending whether approached from ascent or descent.

  The singer's voice soared slowly upward in pitch and volume, growing more intense as it quavered around certain of the high notes, while the sarangi player listened attentively and bowed the exact notes he sang, always seeming to guess which note he would find next. The song was melodic, and gradually what had at first seemed almost a dirge grew to be a poignant line of beauty.

  Suddenly the singer's voice cut the air with a fast-tempo phrase, which was brief and immediately repeated, the second time to the accompaniment of the drum, as both players picked up the notes. On the third repetition of the phrase, the curtains on Arangbar's right were swept aside and a young woman seemed to fairly burst across the room, her every skipping step announced by a band of tiny bells bound around her ankles and across the tops of her bare feet.

  As she spun into the light, she whirled a fast pirouette that sent her long braided pigtail—so long the end was attached to her waist—whistling in an arc behind her. Her flowered silk tunic flew outward from her spinning body, revealing all of her tight-fitting white trousers. She wore a crown of jewels, straight pendant earrings of emerald, and an inch- long string of diamonds dangled from the center of her nose.

  She paused for an instant, whirled toward Arangbar, and performed a salaam with her right hand, fingers slightly bent, thumb across her palm as she raised her hand to her forehead. The movement was possessed of so much grace it seemed a perfect dance figure.

  "May I take the liberty of interpreting for you, Ambassa­dor?" Nadir Sharif ignored the hookah mouthpiece that another, slightly tipsy, guest was urging on him and slid closer to Hawksworth. "Kathak is an art, like painting or pigeon-flying, best appreciated when you know the rules." He pointed toward the dancer. "Her name is Sangeeta, and she has just performed the invocation. For the Hindus it is a salute to their elephant-headed god Ganesh. For Muslims, it is a salaam."

  Next she turned slowly toward the guests and struck a pose, one foot crossed behind the other, arms bent as though holding a drawn bow. As the sarangi played a slow, tuneful melody, she seemed to control the rhythm of the drums by quietly stroking together again and again the thumb and forefinger of each hand. The explosive tension in her body seemed focused entirely in this single, virtually imperceptible motion, almost as a glass marshals the power of the sun to a tiny point. Then her eyes began to dart from side to side, and first one eyebrow and then the other lifted seductively. Gradually the rhythm was taken up by her head, as it began to glide from side to side in a subtle, elegant expression that seemed an extension of the music.

  She had possessed the room almost as a spirit of pure dance, chaste, powerful, disciplined, and there was nothing of the overt suggestiveness of the nautch dancers of the Shahbandar's courtyard. She wore a low-cut, tight vest of brocade over a long-sleeved silk shirt, and of her body only her hands, feet, and face were visible. It was these, Hawksworth realized, not her body, that were the elements of Kathak dance.

  "Now she'll begin the second section of the dance. It's the introduction and corresponds to the opening of a raga. It sets the atmosphere and makes you long for more. I know of no feringhi who has ever seen Kathak, but perhaps you can understand. Do you feel it?"

  Hawksworth sipped his wine slowly and tried to clear his head. In truth he felt very little, save the intensity that seemed to be held in check.

  "It appears to be rather subtle. Very little seems to be happening." Hawksworth drank again and found himself longing for a lively hornpipe.

  "A great deal will happen, Ambassador, and very soon. In India you must learn patience."

  Almost at that moment the drummers erupted with a dense rhythmic cycle and the sarangi took up a single repetitive phrase. Sangeeta looked directly at Hawksworth and called out a complex series of rhythmic syllables, in a melodic if slightly strident voice, all the while duplicating the exact pattern of sounds by slapping the henna-reddened soles of her feet against the carpet. Then she glided across the carpet in a series of syncopated foot movements, saluting each of the guests in turn and calling out strings of syllables, after which she would dance a sequence that replicated the rhythm exactly, her feet a precise percussion instrument.

  "The syllables she recites are called bols, Ambassador, which are the names of the many different strokes on the tabla drums. Drummers sometimes call out a sequence before they play it. She does the same, except she uses her feet almost as a drummer uses his hands."

  As Hawksworth watched, Sangeeta called strings of syllables that were increasingly longer and more complex. He could not understand the bols, or perceive the rhythms as she danced them, but the drunken men around him were smiling and swinging their heads from side to side in what he took to be appreciative approval. Suddenly Arangbar shouted something to her and pointed toward the first drummer. The drummer beamed, nodded, and as Sangeeta watched, called out a dense series of bols. Then she proceeded to dance the sequence with her feet. The room exploded with cries of appreciation when she finished the sequence, and Hawksworth assumed she had managed to capture the instructions the musician had called. Then Arangbar pointed to the other drummer and he also called out a string of bols, which again Sangeeta repeated. Finally the singer called a rhythm sequence, the most complex yet, and both dancer and drummer repeated them precisely together.

  As the tempo became wilder, Sangeeta began a series of lightning spins, still pounding the carpet with her reddened soles, and in time she seemed to transform into a whirling top, her pigtail loose no
w and singing through the air like a deadly whip. She had become a blur, and for a brief moment she appeared to have two heads. Hawksworth watched in wonder and sipped from his wine cup.

  "Now she'll begin the last part, Ambassador, the most demanding of all."

  The rhythm became almost a frenzy now. Then as suddenly as they had begun the whirls ended. Sangeeta struck a statuesque pose, arms extended in rigid curves, and began a display of intensely rhythmic footwork. Her body seemed frozen in space as nothing moved save her feet. The bells on her ankles became a continuous chime, increasing in tempo with the drum and the sarangi until the rhythmic phrase itself was nothing more than a dense blur of notes, Suddenly the drummer and instrumentalist fell silent, conceding the room to Sangeeta's whirring bells. She seemed, at the last, to be treading on pure air, her feet almost invisible. When the intensity of her rhythm became almost unbearable, the drummers and sarangi player reentered, urging the excitement to a crescendo. A final phrase was introduced, repeated with greater intensity, and then a third and final time, ending with a powerful crash on the large drum that seemed to explode the tension in the room. Several of the musicians cried out involuntarily, almost orgasmically, in exultation. In the spellbound silence that followed, the nobles around Hawksworth burst into cheers.

  Sangeeta seemed near collapse as she bowed to Arangbar. The Moghul smiled broadly, withdrew a velvet purse of coins from his cloak, and threw it at her feet. Moments later several others in the room followed suit. With a second bow she scooped the purses from the carpet and vanished through the curtains. The cheers followed her long after she was gone.

  "What do you think, Ambassador? You know half the men here would give a thousand gold mohurs to have her tonight." Nadir Sharif beamed mischievously. "The other half two thousand."

  "Come forward." Arangbar motioned to the singer sitting on the carpet. He was, Hawksworth now realized, an aging, portly man with short white hair and a painful limp. As he approached Arangbar's dais, he began removing the tiny cymbals attached to the fingers of one hand that he had used to keep time for the dancer.

  "He's her guru, her teacher." Nadir Sharif pointed to the man as he bowed obsequiously before the Moghul. "If His Majesty decides to select Sangeeta to dance at the wedding, his fortune will be made. Frankly I thought she was good, though there is still a trifle too much flair in her style, too many tricks. But then she's young, and perhaps it's too soon to expect genuine maturity. Still, I noticed His Majesty was taken with her. She could well find herself in the zenana soon."

  Arangbar flipped another purse of coins to the man, and then spoke to him curtly in Persian.

  "His Majesty has expressed his admiration, and says he may call him again after he has seen the other dancers." Nadir Sharif winked. "Choosing the dancers is a weighty responsibility. Naturally His Majesty will want to carefully review all the women."

  The lamps brightened again and servants bustled about the carpet filling glasses and exchanging the burned-out tobacco chillum, clay bowls at the top of each hookah. When they had finished, Arangbar took another glass of wine and signaled for the lamps to be lowered once more. A new group of musicians began filing into the room, carrying instru­ments Hawksworth had never before seen. First came the drummer, who carried not the two short tabla drums but rather a single long instrument, designed to be played at both ends simultaneously. A singer entered next, already wearing small gold cymbals on each hand. Finally a third man entered, carrying nothing but a piece of inch-thick bamboo, less than two feet in length and perforated with a line of holes.

  Arangbar looked quizzically at Nadir Sharif.

  As though reading the question, the prime minister rose and spoke in Turki. "This one's name is Kamala, Your Majesty. She is originally from the south, but now she is famous among the Hindus in Agra. Although I have never seen her dance, I assumed Your Majesty would want to humor the Hindus by auditioning her."

  "We are a sovereign of all our subjects. I have never seen this Hindu dance. Nor these instruments of the south. What are they called?"

  "The drum is called a mirdanga, Majesty. They use it in the south with a type of sitar they call the veena. The other instrument is a bamboo flute."

  Arangbar shifted impatiently. "Tell them this should be brief."

  Nadir Sharif spoke quickly to the musicians in a language few in the room seemed to understand. They nodded and immediately the flautist began a haunting lyric line that bathed the room in a soft, echoing melody. Hawksworth was startled that so simple an instrument could produce such rich, warm tones.

  The curtains parted and a tall, elaborately jeweled woman swept across the carpet. She took command of the space around her, possessed it, almost as though it were part of her being. Her long silk sari had been gathered about each leg so that it seemed like trousers, and her every step was announced by dense bracelets of bells at her ankles. Most striking, however, was her carriage. Hawksworth had never before seen such dignity of motion.

  As he stared at her, he realized she was wearing an immense, diamond-encrusted nose ring and long pendant earrings, also of diamonds. Not even the Moghul wore stones to equal hers. Her face was heavily painted, but still he suspected she might no longer be in the first bloom of youth. Her self-assurance was too secure. She knew exactly who she was.

  She turned her back to Arangbar as she reverently gave an invocation, both hands together and raised above her head, to some absent god. The only sound was the slow, measured cadence of the drum. Suddenly it seemed as though her body had captured some perfect moment of balance, a feeling of timelessness within time.

  Hawksworth glanced toward Arangbar, whose irritation was obvious.

  How can she be so imprudent as to ignore him? Aren't Hindus afraid of him? What was her name? Kamala?

  His eyes shot back to the woman.

  Kamala.

  Can she be the woman Kali spoke of that last night in Surat? The Lotus Woman? Nadir Sharif said she was famous.

  "Just who are you?" Arangbar's voice cut through the carpeted room, toward the woman's back. He was speaking Turki, and he was outraged.

  Kamala whirled on him. "One who dances for Shiva, in his aspect as Nataraj, the god of the dance. For him and for him alone."

  "What do you call this dance for your infidel god?"

  "Bharata Natyam. The dance of the temple. The sacred tradition as old as India itself. The god Shiva set the world in motion by the rhythms of his dance. My dance is a prayer to Shiva." Kamala's eyes snapped with hatred. "I dance for no one else."

  "You were summoned here to dance for me." Arangbar pulled himself drunkenly erect. Around the room the nobles began to shift uneasily, their bleary eyes filling with alarm.

  "Then I will not dance. You have the world in your hands. But you cannot possess the dance of Shiva. Our dance is prescribed in the Natya Shastra of the ancient sage Bharata. Over a thousand years ago he declared that dance is not merely for pleasure; dance is the blending of all art, religion, philosophy. It gives mankind wisdom, discipline, endur­ance. Through dance we are allowed to know the totality of all that is. My dance is not for your sport."

  Arangbar's anger increased, but now it was leavened with puzzlement.

  "If you will not dance your Shiva dance, then dance Kathak."

  "The dance Muslims call Kathak is the perversion of yet another of our sacred traditions. Perhaps there are some Hindu dancers who will, for Muslim gold, debase the ancient Kathak dance of India, will make it a display of empty technique for the amusement of India's oppressors. Muslims and"—she turned and glared at Hawksworth—"now feringhi. But I will not do it. The Kathak you want to see is no longer true Kathak. It has been made empty, without meaning. I will never debase our true Kathak dance for you, as others have done, any more than I will dedicate a performance of Bharata Natyam to a mortal man."

  The guards near the entrance of the Diwan-i-Khas had all tensed, their hands dropping uneasily to their swords.

  "I have heard en
ough. A man who dared speak to me as you have would be sent to the elephants. You, I think, deserve more. Since you speak to your god through dance, you do not need a tongue."

  Arangbar turned to summon the waiting guards when, at the rear of the Diwan-i-Khas, the figure of the Chief Painter emerged, his assistants trailing behind. They carried a long, thin board.

  Nadir Sharif spotted them and immediately leaped to his feet, almost as though he had been expecting their entrance.

  "Your Majesty." He quickly moved between Arangbar and Kamala, who stood motionless. "The paintings have arrived. I'm ready for my horse. Let the English ambassador see them now."

  Arangbar looked up in confusion, his eyes half closed from the opium. Then he saw the painters and remembered.

  "Bring them in." Suddenly his alertness seemed to return. "I want to see five Inglish kings."

  The paintings were brought to the foot of Arangbar's dais, and he inspected them drunkenly, but with obvious satisfac­tion.

  "Ambassador Inglish. Have a look." Arangbar called toward the hushed shadows of the seated guests. A path immediately cleared among the bolsters, as hookahs were pushed aside, wineglasses seized.

  Hawksworth walked unsteadily forward, his mind still stunned by the imminent death sentence waiting for the woman. As he passed her, he sensed her powerful presence and inhaled her musky perfume. There was no hint of fear in her eyes as she stood waiting, statuesque and defiant.

  By the time he reached the throne, eunuchs were waiting with candles, one on each side of the board, bathing it in flickering light. On it was a line of five English miniatures of King James, each approximately an inch square.

  Good Jesus, they're identical. Am I so drunk I can't tell a painting of King James?

  He looked up shakily at Arangbar, whose smile was a gloat.

  "Well, Ambassador Inglish. What say you? Are the painters of my school equal to any your king has?"

  "One moment, Majesty. Until my eyes adjust." Hawks­worth grasped one edge of the board to steady himself. Behind him there were murmurs of delight and he caught the word "feringhi."

  As he walked along the board, studying each painting in turn, he suddenly noticed that the reflection of the candlelight was different for one.

  The paint is still wet on the new portraits. That's the difference. Or is it? Are my eyes playing tricks? Damn me for letting Nadir Sharif fill my wineglass every chance he had.

  "Come, Ambassador Inglish. We do not have all night." Arangbar's voice was brimming with triumph.

  Hawksworth studied the paintings more closely. Yes, there's a slight difference. The colors on the one painting are slightly different. Duller.

  They didn't use varnish. And there are fewer shadows. Theirs are more two-dimensional.

  "I'm astounded, Your Majesty. But I believe this is the one by Isaac Oliver." Hawksworth pointed to the painting second from the right end.

  "Let me see them again." Arangbar's voice was a husky slur. "I will tell if you have guessed correctly."

  The board was handed up. Arangbar glanced at the paintings for only an instant. "You have guessed right, Ambassador Inglish. And I realize how you did it. The light from the candles."

  "The portraits are identical, Your Majesty. I confess it."

  "So we have won our point. And you won the wager, Inglish. Still, you won only because of my haste. Tomorrow you would not have known. Do you admit it?"

  "I do, Your Majesty." Hawksworth bowed slightly.

  "So, you did not really win the wager after all. We lost it. But I am a man of honor. We will release Nadir Sharif from his pledge. I am the one who must pay. What would you have? Perhaps a diamond?"

  "The wager was only for a horse, Your Majesty." Hawksworth was stunned.

  "No. That was the wager of Nadir Sharif. You have won a wager from a king. Yours must be the payment of a king. If not a jewel, then what would you have?"

  Before Hawksworth could reply, Nadir Sharif stepped forward and bent toward Arangbar.

  "If I may be allowed to suggest, Your Majesty, the feringhi needs a woman. Give him this dancer. Let him amuse himself with her until you can find a suitable wife for him."

  Arangbar looked toward Hawksworth with glazed eyes. It was obvious he had already forgotten about Kamala.

  "The Kathak dancer who was here? She was excellent. Yes, that would be perfect."

  "Your Majesty of course means the woman standing here now." Nadir Sharif directed Arangbar's groggy gaze toward Kamala, who stood mutely, eyes flashing.

  "There she is. Of course. What do you say to her, Inglish?"

  Hawksworth was astounded by Nadir Sharifs quickness of wit. He's saved the woman. He's a genius. Of course I'll take her. Good Jesus, there's been enough bloodshed today.

  "The woman would be the gift of a great prince, Your Majesty."

  "So there's manhood about you after all, Inglish. I had begun to think you were like your king." Arangbar laughed in delight. "So it's a woman you would have, Ambassador? Merciful Allah, I have too many now. Perhaps you would like two. I recall there's an Armenian Christian somewhere in the zenana. Perhaps several. They're said to be as lusty as the Portuguese harlots in Goa." He choked for a moment on laughter. "Let me summon the eunuchs."

  "This one will do for now, Your Majesty." Think how to phrase this. "Merely to serve me."

  "Yes, she will 'serve' you, Ambassador. Or we will have her head. If she would amuse you, she's yours."

  Kamala's look met Hawksworth's. It was strangely without emotion.

  Then Arangbar suddenly remembered Kamala's defiance and turned to study her again with half-closed eyes.

  "But not this one. It must be the other one you want. This one will be hanged tonight, in a room far beneath the zenana. After she has answered for her words. Tomorrow her carcass will pollute the Jamuna. A man in her place would already be dead."

  "May it please Your Majesty, it would satisfy me even more to have this one." Hawksworth paused. "Perhaps it's what the English call honor. We both know I did not win our wager fairly. Only by taking something of no value, like this woman, could I maintain my honor, and my king's."

  "You are persuasive, Inglish, and I am drunk. But not too drunk to suspect you've taken a fancy to this infidel. But if you prefer her to the other, then so be it. We offered you whatever you wished. She's yours. But never let her be seen on the streets of Agra again. We will have her cut down."

  "As please Your Majesty."

  "It's done." Arangbar turned to Nadir Sharif. "Is it true you've found a house for the Inglish?"

  "I have, Your Majesty."

  "Then send her there." He turned to Hawksworth. "Allah protect you from these infidel Hindus, Inglish. They have none of your Inglish honor."

  "I humbly thank Your Majesty." Jesus Christ, I've just been imprisoned in a house staffed by Nadir Sharifs hand-picked spies.

  "Enough. We've been told to retire early tonight. Her Majesty thinks we drink to excess." He laughed a slurred chortle. "But we will see you tomorrow, Inglish. To talk more. We have much to discuss. We want to hear what gifts your king is preparing for us. We would very much like a large mastiff from Europe. We hear they hunt game like a chitah."

  Arangbar drew himself up shakily and two eunuchs immediately were at his side, helping him from the white marble throne. None of the guests moved until he had passed through the curtains. Immediately the eunuchs began moving about the room, extinguishing the lamps. By the time the guests assembled to leave, the room was virtually dark. Kamala and the musicians had been escorted from the room by Arangbar's guards. Suddenly Hawksworth felt Nadir Sharifs hand on his arm.

  "That was a noble thing you did, Ambassador. We all owe you a debt of thanks. I have rarely seen His Majesty so out of temper. The repercussions could have been distressing for many of us."

  "It was your idea."

  "Merely a quick fancy, an act of desperation. But without your cooperation it would have been impossible. I do thank you."
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  "There's nothing to thank me for." Hawksworth drew his arm away. "Where's this house you've found for me?"

  Nadir Sharif sighed. "Finding a secure lodging these days is more difficult than you might first imagine, Ambassador. But you were in luck. I remembered there's a small lodge in my palace grounds that is unoccupied. I did not reckon on quarters for two, but of course the woman will be living with your servants. The house should serve until something more fitting can be found."

  "My thanks." Damn you. "When do I move there?"

  "Your effects have already been moved, on His Majesty's authority. You can come tonight. My men will show you there. Your dinner is probably waiting."

  At that moment the last lamp was extinguished. Along with the other guests they groped their way out of the Diwan-i-Khas in total darkness.