The Moghul

by Thomas Hoover

  *

  He was on the quarterdeck, the whipstaff aching against his hand, the mainsail furled as storm winds lashed the waist of the ship with wave after powerful wave. The ship was the Queen's Hope, his vessel when he sailed for the Levant Company, and the rocks that towered off his starboard bow were Gibraltar. He shouted into the dark for the quartermas­ter to reef the tops'ls, and he leaned on the whipstaff to bring her about, but neither responded. He had no crew. He was being swept, helpless, toward the empty darkness that lay ahead. Another wave caught him across the face, and somewhere in the dark came a screech, as though the sea had given up some dying Leviathan beast. His seaboots were losing their hold on the quarterdeck, and now the whipstaff had grown sharp talons that cut into his hand. Then a woman's voice, a distant siren calling him. Again the screech and then yet another wave cut across his face.

  The water tasted of roses. . . .

  He jerked violently awake. On his hand a green parrot was perched, preening itself and ruffling its feathers. And from the pool below Shirin was flinging handfuls of water up over the side of the platform, laughing as she tried to splash his face.

  She was floating, naked, below him, her hair streaming out across the surface of the water, tangled among the drifting rose petals. He looked about and saw his own wet clothes, mingled among her silks and jewels. For a moment he felt again the terror of the dream, the rudderless ship impelled by something beyond control, and then he caught the edge of the platform and slipped over the side.

  The water was cool against his skin and involuntarily he caught his breath. Then he reached out and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her against him. She turned her face to his, twined her hair around his head, and crushed his lips with her own. Just as suddenly, she threw back her head and laughed with joy. He found himself laughing with her.

  "Why don't we both just stay? I don't have to be back in Agra until the wedding. We could have a week." He studied the perfect lines of her face, the dark eyes at once defiant and anxious, and wished he could hold her forever. The Worshipful East India Company be damned.

  "But we both have things we must do." She revolved in the flowered water and drew her face above his. She kissed him again, languorously. Then she drew herself out of the water and twisted a wrap around her, covering her breasts. "Both you and I."

  "And what's this thing you have to do?"

  Her eyes shadowed. "One thing I must try to do is convince Samad he cannot stay here any longer. He has to go south, where Prince Jadar can protect him. But he refuses to listen. And time is growing short now. I truly fear for what may happen to him after the wedding. The Persian Shi'ite mullahs will certainly be powerful enough then to demand he be tried and executed on charges of heresy. For violating some obscure precept of Islamic law. It will be the end for him." She paused. "And for anyone who has helped him."

  "Then if he won't leave, at least you should." He lifted himself out of the water and settled beside her on the marble paving. "Why don't you come back to England with me? When the fleet from Bantam makes landfall at Surat, Arangbar will surely have the courage to sign the firman, and then my mission will be finished. It should only be a matter of weeks, regardless of what the Portugals try to do."

  She studied the water of the pool with sadness in her eyes and said nothing for a moment as she kicked the surface lightly.

  "Neither of us is master of what will happen. Things are going to soon be out of control. For both of us. Things are going to happen that you will not understand."

  Hawksworth squinted through the half-light. "What's going to happen?"

  "Who can know? But I would not be surprised to see the prince betrayed totally, in one final act that will eventually destroy him. He is too isolated. Too weak. And when that happens we're all doomed. Even you, though I don't think you'll believe that now."

  "Why should I? I'm not betting on Prince Jadar. I agree with you. I don't think he has a chance. I'm betting on a firman from Arangbar, and soon."

  "You'll never get a firman from the Moghul. And Arangbar will be gone in half a year. The queen has already started appearing at morning darshan and directing his decisions at afternoon durbar. As soon as she has Allaudin under her control, Arangbar will be finished. Mark it. He'll die from too much opium, or from some mysterious poison or accident. He will cease to exist, to matter."

  "I don't believe it. He seems pretty well in control."

  "If that's what you think, then you are very deceived. He can't live much longer. Everyone knows it. Perhaps even he knows it in his heart. Soon he will give up even the appearance of rule. Then the queen will take full command of the Imperial army, and Prince Jadar will be hunted down like a wild boar."

  He studied her, not sure he could reasonable contradict her, and felt his stomach knot. "What will happen to you, if the queen takes over?"

  "I don't know. But I do know I love you. I truly do. How sad it makes me that I can't tell you everything." Her eyes darkened and she took his hand. "Please understand I did not know the prince would use you the way he has. But it is for good. Try to believe that."

  "What do you mean?"

  She hesitated and looked away. "Let me ask you this. What do you think the prince will do after the wedding?"

  "I don't know, but I think he'd be very wise to keep clear of Agra. Nobody at court will even talk about him now, at least not openly. Still, I think he might be able to stay alive if he's careful. If he survives the campaign in the Deccan, maybe he can bargain something out of the queen. But I agree with you about one thing. She can finish him any time she wants. I understand she already has de facto control of the Imperial army, in Arangbar's name of course. What can Jadar do? He's outnumbered beyond any reasonable odds. Maybe she'll make him a governor in the south if he doesn't challenge her."

  "Do you really believe he'd accept that? Can't you see that's impossible? You've met Prince Jadar. Do you think he'll just give up? That's the one thing he'll never do. He has a son now. The people will support him." She pulled herself next to him. "I feel so isolated and hopeless just thinking about it all. I'm so glad Nadir Sharif brought you here."

  He slipped his arm around her. "So am I. Will you tell me now how you managed to make him do it?"

  "I still have friends left in Agra." She smiled. "And Nadir Sharif still has a few indiscretions he'd like kept buried. Sometimes he can be persuaded . . ."

  "Did he know Samad was here?"

  "If he didn't before, he does now. But he won't say anything. Anyway, it hardly matters any more. The queen probably already knows Samad's here." She sighed. "The worst is still waiting. For him. And for both of us."

  He caught a handful of water and splashed it against her thigh. "Then let's not talk about it. Until tomorrow."

  The worry in her eyes seemed to dissolve and she laughed. "Do you realize how much you've changed since I first met you? You were as stiff as a Portuguese Jesuit then, before Kali and Kamala got their painted fingernails into you. Kali, the lover of the flesh, and Kamala, the lover of the spirit." She glared momentarily. "Now I must take care, lest you start comparing me with them. Never forget. I'm different. I believe love should be both."

  He pulled her away and looked at her face. "I'm amazed by how different you are. I still have no idea what you're really like. What you really think."

  "About what?"

  "Anything. Everything." He shrugged. "About this even."

  "You mean being here with you? Making love with you?"

  "That's a perfect place to start."

  She smiled and eased back in the water, silently toying for a moment with the rose petals drifting around her. "I think making love with someone is how we share our deepest feelings. Things we can't express any other way. It's how I tell you my love for you." She paused. "The way music or poetry reveal the soul of the one who creates them."

  "Are you saying you think lovemaking is like creating music?" He examined her, puzzling.

  "They both express w
hat we feel inside."

  He lifted up a handful of water and watched it trickle back into the pool. "I've never thought of it quite like that before."

  "Why not? It's true. Before you can create music, you have to teach both your body and your heart. It's the same with making love."

  "What do you mean?"

  She reached and touched his thigh. "When we're very young, lovemaking is mostly just desire. We may think it's more, but it isn't really. Then gradually we learn more of its ways, how to give and receive. But even then we still don't fully understand its deeper significance. We're like a novice who has learned the techniques of the sitar, the way to strike and pull a string to make one note blend into another, but who still doesn't comprehend the spiritual depth of a raga. Its power to move our heart. We still don't understand that its meaning and feeling can only come from within. And love, like a raga, is an expression of reverence and of wonder. Wonder at what we are and can be. So even after all the techniques are mastered, we still must learn to experience this wonder, this sense of our spirit becoming one with the other. Otherwise it's somehow still empty. Like perfect music that has no feeling, no life."

  He was silent for a moment, trying to comprehend what she was saying. "If you look at it like that, I suppose you could be right."

  "With music, we first have to learn its language, then learn to open our spirit. Lovemaking is just the same."

  She nestled her head against his chest, sending her warmth through him. As he held her, he noticed lying alongside the pool the garland of flowers she had worn the night before. He reached and took it and slipped it over her head. Then he kissed her gently, finding he was indeed filled with wonder at the feeling he had for her.

  He held her silently for a time, looking at the paintings on the walls of the palace around them. Then he noticed a large straw basket at the entryway.

  "What is that?" He pointed.

  She rose and looked. "I think it's something Samad had left for us."

  She lifted herself out of the water and, holding her wrap against her, brought the basket. It was filled with fruits and melons.

  "They're not from Samarkand or Kabul, like you've probably grown accustomed to at the palace in Agra. But I think you'll like them anyway." She squinted across the square, in the direction of the mosque. "I love Samad dearly. He did all of this for me. But he refuses to listen to anything I say." She handed him an apple, then reached and took some grapes. "You know, I think he secretly wants to die a martyr. Like a lover eager to die for his or her beloved. He wants to die for his wild freedom, for what he thinks is beautiful. Perhaps to be remembered as one who never bowed to anyone. I wish I had his strength."

  "Where's he now?"

  "You won't see him any more. But he's still here. He'll have food sent to us. He loves me like a daughter, and he's happy when I am. And he knows now you make me happy. But you mustn't see him here again, even know that he's here. It would be too dangerous for you. Perhaps someday, if we're all still alive."

  He took her face in his hands and held it up to him. "You have as much strength as anyone, including Samad. And I want to get you away from here before your strength makes you do something foolish. I love you more than my own life."

  "And I love you. Like I've never loved anyone."

  "Not even the Great Moghul? When you were in his zenana?"

  She laughed. "You know that was very different. I was scarcely more than a girl then. I didn't know anything."

  "You learned a few things somewhere." He remembered the night past, still astonished. The way she had . . .

  "In the zenana you learn everything about lovemaking. But nothing about love." She rose and took his hand. Together they walked to the open portico of the palace. Around them the red pavilions were empty in the early sunshine. The morning was still, save for the cries of the green parrots who scurried across eaves and peered down impassively from weathered red railings and banisters. His gaze followed the wide arches, then turned to her dark shining hair. He reached out and stroked it.

  "Tell me more about it. How did you learn Turki?"

  "In the zenana. We had to learn it, even though Arangbar speaks perfect Persian." She turned to him. "And how did you learn to understand it?"

  "In a Turkish prison." He laughed. "It seems about the same to me. I had to learn it too."

  "Will you tell me about it? Why were you in prison?"

  "Like you, I had no choice. The Turks took a ship I was commanding, in the Mediterranean."

  "Tell me what happened."

  He stopped and looked at her. "All right. We'll trade. You tell me all about you and I'll tell you everything about me. We'll leave out nothing. Agreed?" She reached and kissed him. "Will you begin first?"