The Moghul Part 31

Where, he had asked himself, can I find fifty lakhs of silver, five million rupees, within a month, and have them at Burhanpur when we arrive? I'll not squeeze a copper _pice_, penny, from Agra.

If not Agra, where?

And slowly in his mind a form had taken shape. He had

examined it, almost touched it, puzzled over it. And then he knew what it was.

The mint at Surat. Where foreign coin is melted and recast as rupees.

Fifty lakhs of silver rupees would scarcely be missed. Especially if the Shahbandar would allow his minters to work a normal day. The backlog of foreign coin he holds unmelted, creating an artificial shortage of silver, would easily cover fifty lakhs of rupees. I need only borrow what I need, and with it buy back into service the cavalry I need to reclaim the Deccan.

The Shahbandar.

But will he do it?

He will. If I can show him collateral.

I don't have enough collateral. Not in my own funds. Not even in the local treasuries.

But there must be enough silver in eighteen thousand tents to a.s.semble five million rupees.

I will hold it, and give him a note of obligation using it as collateral. If we reach Ahmadnagar, I will squeeze the five million rupees many times over from every traitorous _mansabdar _I do not hang.

I will confiscate their _jagir_ estates and let them buy them back. I can easily confiscate enough to return the Shahbandar his loan, and then my men will have back their silver.

If we do not reach Ahmadnagar, it will be because we are dead. So what will it matter? We will make an oath to reach the city or die.

Only one problem remains.

How to move the coin from Surat to Burhanpur. Secretly. No one must know where it came from or that it's being transferred. But a train with fifty lakhs of rupees must be heavily guarded. And the guards will betray its value.

Unless there can be some other reason for a heavily guarded train from Surat to Burhanpur. A reason that would not automatically evoke suspicion. Possibly a person of importance. Someone whom all India knows cannot be touched. Someone important to the Moghul.

And then the perfect answer came. The most obvious answer of all. Who will soon be traveling from Surat to Burhanpur, en route to Agra, under safe conduct of the Moghul? The Englishman.

The infidel _feringhi _need never know. That with him will be the silver that will save Prince Jadar.

CHAPTER TEN

Brian Hawksworth stepped lightly off the prow of the barge as it eased into the riverbank and worked his way through the knee-deep tidal mud onto the sandy sh.o.r.e. Even here, across the harbor, the water still stank of the sewers of Surat. Then he turned and surveyed the sprawling city, back across the broad estuary, astonished that they could have crossed the harbor so easily on nothing more substantial than a wide raft of boards lashed with rope, what the Indians called a bark.

Ahead, waiting on the sh.o.r.e, was a line of loaded bullock carts-- conveyances with two wooden wheels higher than a man's head, a flat bed some six feet wide, and a heavy bamboo pole for a tongue--each yoked to two tall, humpbacked gray cattle with conspicuous ribs. The carts stretched down the muddy road that emerged from the tangle of coastal scrub and were piled to overflowing with rolls of English wool cloth.

The turbaned drivers now shouted Hindi obscenities as they walked alongside and lashed the sullen cattle into place for unloading. As Hawksworth watched, the porters who had ridden with him splashed their way toward the sh.o.r.e and began driving stakes to secure the mooring lines of the bark. Wool would be ferried across the harbor and cotton brought back with each trip.

Then Hawksworth caught sight of George Elkington's ragged hat bobbing in the midday suns.h.i.+ne as the Chief Merchant and his aide, Humphrey Spencer, climbed down from their two-wheeled Indian coach, drawn by two white oxen, which had been loaned by Shahbandar. Farther down the line of carts was a detail of English seamen, led by red-haired Mackintosh, and all carrying muskets, who had walked the fifteen-mile, two-day trek to guard the cargo.

The trading season was well underway, and over the past three weeks a motley a.s.semblage of cargo vessels from the length of the Indian Ocean had appeared downriver at the bar to commence unlading. Foreign traders normally transported goods inland to Surat on the barks that plied the Tapti between the port and the shallow bar at the river mouth. But these vessels had arrived at the bar with the blessings of Portugal, for they all had acquired a Portuguese license and paid duty on their cargo at some Portuguese-controlled tax point.

After evaluating the risk of exposing his English frigates at the bar-- where maneuverability was limited and the possibility of Portuguese surprise great--Brian Hawksworth had elected to unlade directly onsh.o.r.e from their protected anchorage north of the river mouth, the cove called Swalley, then haul the goods overland to the banks of the Tapti opposite Surat. There would be no risk of Portuguese interference inland and, once across from the port, the goods could be easily barged to the _maidan_.

He turned again toward the river and examined the town of Surat from his new vantage. It was easy to see now why this location had been chosen for the port, for here the river curved and widened, creating a natural, protected harbor. The most conspicuous landmarks visible from across the harbor were three stone villas along the riverfront, all owned by the Shahbandar, and the square stone fort that stood on the downriver side of the harbor, its heavy ordnance trained perpetually on the water. The fort was surrounded by a moat on three sides and on the fourth by the river. Entry could only be gained through a gate on the riverside, or a drawbridge that connected its entrance to the open _maidan_, the square where traders congregated.

The square had swarmed with merchants and brokers as they pa.s.sed through, and he had watched as two brokers stood together near its center--one from Ahmedabad, up-country, and the other from Surat--arguing loudly over the price and quality of a pile of indigo. The porters explained that the Surat broker was accusing the other of mixing sand with the indigo to increase its weight, then disguising his deception by also adding enough oil that the indigo would still float on water, the test used to establish purity of the dried extract of the indigo leaf. As the argument grew more vigorous, Hawksworth noticed the men join hands beneath a piece of cloth, where they began negotiating the actual price by means of their fingers, a figure undoubtedly little related to the movement of their tongues.

Now that the high trading season of September-January had begun, Surat's narrow streets were one loud bazaar, swollen to almost two hundred thousand grasping traders, bargaining seamen, hawking merchants. A dozen languages stirred the air as a motley melange of up- country Indian traders, Arabs, Jains, Parsis, Persians, Jews, Egyptians, Portuguese, and returning Muslim pilgrims--every nationality known to the Indian Ocean--swaggered through the garbage-sodden mud paths called streets.

Hawksworth gazed back at the city and reflected over the curious events of the past three weeks. The English had, inexplicably, been received first with open hostility, and then with suspiciously cordial deference--first by the governor, and afterward by the Shahbandar.

Something is very wrong, he told himself. A contest of wills is underway between the Shahbandar, Mirza Nuruddin, and the governor, Mukarrab Khan. And so far, Mukarrab Khan seems to be winning. Or is he?

Six days before, the governor had suddenly reversed his policy of noninterference in port affairs and authorized a license for the English to sell their cargo in Surat and buy Indian goods, something the Shahbandar had found one excuse after another to delay. However, Mukarrab Khan had delivered this license directly to the English, rather than forwarding it to the Shahbandar through normal channels, leaving Brian Hawksworth the unpleasant responsibility of presenting this doc.u.ment to the Shahbandar in person. But the meeting turned out to be nothing like Hawksworth had expected.

"Once more you astound me, Captain." The close, torch-lit chamber of the customs house office had fallen expectantly silent as the Shahbandar drew slowly on his hookah and squinted with his opaque, gla.s.sy eyes at the black seal of Mukarrab Khan affixed to the top of the page. Hawksworth had waited for a glimmer of anger at this insulting breach of port protocol--which surely was Mukarrab Khan's reason for insisting the license be delivered by the English Captain- General. But the Shahbandar's eyes never lost their noncommittal squint. Instead he had turned to Hawksworth with a cordial smile. "Your refusal to negotiate seems to have worked remarkable dispatch with His Excellency's officials. I can't recall ever seeing them act this quickly."

Hawksworth had been amazed. How could Mirza Nuruddin possibly know the terms he had demanded of the governor: produce a license for trade within ten days or the two English frigates would weigh anchor and sail; and accept English sovereigns at bullion value rather than the prevailing discount rate of 4 1/2 percent required to circ.u.mvent "minting time," the weeks "required" by the Shahbandar's minters to melt down foreign coin and re-mint it as Indian rupees.

No one could have been more surprised than Brian Hawksworth when Mukarrab Khan had immediately conceded the English terms and approved the license--valid for sixty days--to land goods, and to buy and sell.

Why had the governor agreed so readily, overriding the Shahbandar's dawdling clerks?

"Naturally you'll need an officer here to schedule the river barks."

The Shahbandar's voice was even, but Hawksworth thought he sensed an air of tension suddenly grip the room. "Normally barks are reserved weeks in advance now during the high season, but we can always accommodate friends of Mukarrab Khan."

It was then that Hawksworth had told the Shahbandar he would not be bringing cargo up the river, that instead it would be transported overland from their protected anchorage using bullock carts arranged for by Mukarrab Khan.

"The cove you call Swalley is several leagues up the coast, Captain.

Foreign cargo has never before been unladed there, nor has it ever been brought overland as you propose." He had seemed genuinely disturbed. "I suggest it's both irregular and unworkable."

"I think you understand why we have to unlade from the cove. The decision is made." Hawksworth tried to keep his voice as firm as that of Mirza Nuruddin. "We'll unload the bullock carts just across the river from the port here, and we'll only need a bark to ferry goods across the harbor."

"As you wish. I'll arrange to have one at your disposal." The Shahbandar drew pensively on the hookah, ejecting coils of smoke into the already dense air of the chamber, and examined Hawksworth. Then he continued. "I understand your frigates are some five hundred tons each.

Full unlading will require at least three weeks, perhaps four. Is that a reasonable estimate?"

"We'll arrange the scheduling. Why do you ask?"

"Merely for information, Captain." Again the Shahbandar flashed his empty smile. Then he bowed as lightly as protocol would admit and called for a tray of rolled betel leaves, signifying the meeting was ended. As Hawksworth took one, he marveled that he had so quickly acquired a taste for their strange alkaline sweetness. Then he looked again at Mirza Nuruddin's impa.s.sive eyes.

d.a.m.n him. Does he know what the Portugals were planning? And was he hoping we'd be caught unlading in the shallows at the river mouth? He knows I've just spoiled their plans.

As he had pa.s.sed back through the customs shed headed toward the _maidan_ and suns.h.i.+ne, Hawksworth could feel the hostile stares. And he knew the reason.

The new English visitors had already made an unforgettable impression on the town of Surat. The merchants George Elkington and Humphrey Spencer had been given accommodations by a Portuguese-speaking Muslim, whom Spencer had immediately outraged by demanding they be served pork.

The other men had been temporarily lodged in a vacant house owned by an indigo broker. After the hard-drinking English seamen had disrupted orderly proceedings in three separate brothels, and been banned in turn by each, the Shahbandar had ordered five _nautch_ girls sent to them at the house. But with fewer women than men, a fight inevitably had ensued, with thorough demolition of the plaster walls and shutters.

Worst of all, bosun's mate John Garway had gone on a drunken spree in the streets and, in a flourish of exuberance, severed the tail of a bullock calf--an animal sacred to the Hindus--with his seaman's knife. A riot in the Hindu quarter had erupted soon after, forcing Mukarrab Khan to remove the English seamen outside the town walls, in tents erected by the "tank," the city reservoir.

Yes, Hawksworth sighed, it'll be a long time before India forgets her first taste of the English.

The barge bobbed lightly as two Indian porters, knee-deep in the mud, hoisted the first roll of woolen cloth onto the planking. This begins the final leg of the India voyage, Hawksworth thought to himself. And this has been the easiest part of all.