The Moghul Part 9

"T'would take a year to tell it all. Somehow we eventually got to the Great Moghul's court. I think he was named Akman. An' we start livin'

like I never thought I'd see. Should've seen his city, lad, made London look like a Shrops.h.i.+re village. He had a big red marble palace called Fatehpur Sekri, with jewels common as rocks, an' gold e'erywhere, an'

gardens filled with fountains, an' mystical music like I'd ne'er heard, an' dancin' women that look'd like angels . . ."

His voice trailed off. "Ah, lad, the women there."

Symmes suddenly remembered himself and turned to examine Hawksworth with his gla.s.sy eyes. "But I fancy you're a bit young to appreciate that part o' it, lad." Then his gaze returned to the fire and he rambled on, warming to his own voice. "An' there was poets readin'

Persian, and painters drawin' pictures that took days to do one the size of a book page. An' the banquets, feasts you're ne'er like to see this side o' Judgment Day."

Symmes paused to draw on his pipe for a moment, his hand still shaking, and then he plunged ahead. "But it was the Drugs that did it, lad, what they call'd affion and bhang, made out o' poppy flowers and some kind of hemp. Take enough of them and the world around you starts to get lost. After a while you ne'er want to come back. It kill'd the others, lad. G.o.d only knows how I escap'd."

Then Symmes took up his well-rehea.r.s.ed monologue about the wealth he'd witnessed, stories of potential trade that had earned him a place at many a merchant's table. His tale expanded, becoming ever more fantastic, until it was impossible to tell where fact ended and wishful fabrication began.

Although Symmes had never actually met any Indian officials, and though the letter from Queen Elizabeth had been lost en route, his astonis.h.i.+ng story of India's riches inspired the greed of all England's merchants.

Excitement swelled throughout London's Cheapside, as traders began to clamor for England to challenge Portugal's monopoly of the sea pa.s.sage around the Cape. Symmes, by his inflated, half-imaginary account, had unwittingly sown the first seeds of the East India Company.

Only young Brian Hawksworth, who nourished no mercantile fantasies, seemed to realize that Roger Symmes had returned from India quite completely mad.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Pinnace is afloat, Cap'n. I'm thinkin' we should stow the goods and be underway. If we're goin'." Mackintosh's silhouette was framed in the doorway of the Great Cabin, his eyes gaunt in the lantern light. Dark had dropped suddenly over the _Discovery_, bringing with it a cooling respite from the inferno of day.

"We'll cast off before the watch is out. Start loading the cloth and iron-work"--Hawksworth turned and pointed toward his own locked sea chest--"and send for the purser."

Mackintosh backed through the doorway and turned automatically to leave. But then he paused, his body suspended in uncertainty for a long moment. Finally he revolved again to Hawksworth.

"Have to tell you, I've a feelin' we'll na be sailin' out o' this p.i.s.s- hole alive." He squinted across the semi-dark of the cabin. "It's my nose tellin' me, sir, and she's always right."

"The Company's sailed to the Indies twice before, Mackintosh."

"Aye, but na to India. The bleedin' Company ne'er dropped anchor in this nest o' Portugals. 'Twas down to Java before. With nothin' but a few Dutchmen to trouble o'er. India's na the Indies, Cap'n. The Indies is down in the Spice Islands, where seas are open. The ports o' India belong to the Portugals, sure as England owns the Straits o' Dover. So beggin' your pardon, Cap'n, this is na the Indies. This might well be Lisbon harbor."

"We'll have a secure anchorage. And once we're inland the Portugals can't touch us." Hawksworth tried to hold a tone of confidence in his voice. "The pilot says he can take us upriver tonight. Under cover of dark."

"No Christian can trust a bleedin' Moor, Cap'n. An' this one's got a curious look. Somethin' in his eyes. Can't tell if he's lookin' at you or na."

Hawksworth wanted to agree, but he stopped himself.

"Moors just have their own ways, Mackintosh. Their mind works differently. But I can already tell this one's not like the Turks."

Hawksworth still had not decided what he thought about the pilot. It scarcely matters now, he told himself, we've no choice but to trust him. "Whatever he's thinking, he'll have no room to play us false."

"Maybe na, but he keeps lookin' toward the sh.o.r.e. Like

he's expectin' somethin'. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's na tellin' us what he knows. I smell it. The nose, Cap'n."

"We'll have muskets, Mackintosh. And the cover of dark. Now load the pinnace and let's be on with it."

Mackintosh stared at the boards, s.h.i.+fting and tightening his belt. He started to argue more, but Hawksworth's voice stopped him.

"And, Mackintosh, order the muskets primed with pistol shot."

Hawksworth recalled a trick his father had once told him about, many long years past. "If anybody ventures to surprise us, we'll hand them a surprise in turn. A musket ball's useless in the dark of night, clump of pistol shot at close quarters is another story."

The prospect of a fight seemed to transform Mackintosh. With a grin he snapped alert, whirled, and stalked down the companionway toward the main deck.

Moments later the balding purser appeared, a lifelong seaman with an unctuous smile and rapacious eyes who had dispensed stores on many a prosperous merchantman, and grown rich on a career of bribes. He mechanically logged Hawksworth's chest in his account book and then signaled the bosun to stow the heavy wooden trunk into the pinnace.

Hawksworth watched the proceedings absently as he checked the edge on his sword. Then he slipped the belt over his shoulder and secured its large bra.s.s buckle. Finally he locked the stern windows and surveyed the darkened cabin one last time.

The _Discovery_. May G.o.d defend her and see us all home safe. Every man.

Then without looking back he firmly closed the heavy oak door, latched it, and headed down the companionway toward the main deck.

Rolls of broadcloth lay stacked along the waist of the s.h.i.+p, and beside them were muskets and a keg of powder. George Elkington was checking off samples of cloth as they were loaded irto the pinnace, noting his selection in a book of accounts.

Standing next to him, watching idly, was Humphrey Spencer, youngest son of Sir Randolph Spencer. He had s.h.i.+pped the voyage as the a.s.sistant to Elkington, but his real motivation was not commerce but adventure, and a stock of tales to spin out in taverns when he returned. His face of twenty had suffered little from the voyage, for a stream of bribes to the knowing purser had reserved for him the choice provisions, including virtually all the honey and raisins.

Humphrey Spencer had donned a tall, brimmed hat, a feather protruding from its beaver band, and his fresh doublet of green taffeta fairly glowed in the lantern's rays. His new thigh-length hose were an immaculate tan and his ruff collar pure silk. A bouquet of perfume hovered about him like an invisible cloud.

Spencer turned and began to pace the deck in distraught agitation, oblivious to his interference as weary seamen worked around him to drag rolls of broadcloth next to the gunwales, stacking them for others to hoist and stow in the pinnace. Then he spotted Hawksworth, and his eyes brightened.

"Captain, at last you're here. Your bosun is an arrant knave, my life on't. He'll not have these rogues stow my chest."

"There's no room in the pinnace for your chest, Spencer."

"But how'm I to conduct affairs 'mongst the Moors without a gentleman's fittings?" He reviewed Hawksworth's leather jerkin and seaboots with disdain.

Before Hawksworth could reply, Elkington was pulling himself erect, wincing at the gout as his eyes blazed. "Spencer, you've enough to do just mindin' the accounts, which thus far you've shown scant aptness for." He turned and spat into the scuppers. "Your father'd have me make you a merchant, but methinks I'd sooner school an ape to sing. 'Tis tradin' we're here for, not to preen like a d.a.m.n'd c.o.xcomb. Now look to it."

"You'll accompany us, Spencer, as is your charge." Hawksworth walked past the young clerk, headed for the fo'c'sle. "The only 'fittings'

you'll need are a sword and musket, which I dearly hope you know enough to use. Now prepare to board."

As Hawksworth pa.s.sed the mainmast, bosun's mate John

Garway dropped the bundle he was holding and stepped forward, beaming a toothless smile.

"Beggin' your pardon, Cap'n. Might I be havin' a word?"

"What is it, Garway."

"Would you ask the heathen, sir, for the men? We've been wonderin' if there's like to be an alehouse or such in this place we're goin'. An' a few o' the kindly s.e.x what might be friendly disposed, if you follow my reckonin', sir."

Hawksworth looked up and saw Karim waiting by the fo'c'sle, his effects rolled in a small woven tapestry under his arm. When the question was translated, the pilot laid aside the bundle and stepped toward the group of waiting seamen, who had all stopped work to listen. He studied them for a moment--ragged and rank with sweat, their faces blotched with scurvy and their hair matted with grease and lice--and smiled with expressionless eyes.

"Your men will find they can purchase _arak_, a local liquor as potent as any I have seen from Europe. And the public women of Surat are masters of all refinements of the senses. They are exquisite, worthy even of the Moghul himself. Accomplished women of pleasure have been brought here from all civilized parts of the world, even Egypt and Persia. I'm sure your seamen will find the accommodations of Surat worthy of their expectations."