The Moghul

by Thomas Hoover

  *

  "This evening must be a time of farewell for us both, Captain Hawksworth. You know, the Hindus believe life and death are an endless cycle that dooms them to repeat their miserable existence over and over again. I myself prefer to think that this one life is itself cyclical, ever renewing. What was new, exciting, yesterday is today tedious and tiresome. So tomorrow brings us both rebirth. For you it is Agra, for me Goa. But I expect to see Surat again, as no doubt do you. Who knows when our paths will cross once more?" Mukarrab Khan watched as a eunuch shoved wide the door leading onto the torchlit garden. "You have been a most gracious visitor, tolerating with exemplary forbear­ance my unworthy hospitality. Tonight perhaps you will endure one last evening of my company, even if I have little else left to offer."

  The courtyard was a confused jumble of packing cases and household goods. Servants were everywhere, wrapping and crating rolled carpets, bolsters, furniture, vases, and women's clothing. Elephants stood near the back of the courtyard, howdahs on their backs, waiting to be loaded. Goods would be transferred to barks for the trip downriver to the bar, where they would be loaded aboard a waiting Portuguese frigate.

  "My dining hall has been dismantled, its carpet rolled. We have no choice but to dine this evening in the open air, like soldiers on the march."

  Hawksworth was no longer hearing Mukarrab Khan. He was staring past him, through the smoke, not quite believing what he saw. But it was all too real. Standing in the corner of the courtyard were two Europeans in black cassocks. Portuguese Jesuits.

  Mukarrab Khan noticed Hawksworth's diplomatic smile suddenly freeze on his face, and turned to follow his gaze.

  "Ah, I must introduce you. You do understand the Portuguese language, Captain?"

  "Enough."

  "I should have thought so. I personally find it abominable and refuse to study it. But both the fathers here have studied Persian in Goa, and I think one of them knows a bit of Turki, from his time in Agra."

  "What are they doing here?" Hawksworth tried to maintain his composure.

  "They returned to Surat just today from Goa, where they've been these past few weeks. I understand they're en route to the Jesuit mission in Lahore, a city in the Punjab, well to the north of Agra. They specifically asked to meet you." He laughed. "They're carrying no cannon, Captain, and I assumed you had no objection."

  "You assumed wrong. I have nothing to say to a Jesuit."

  "You'll meet Jesuits enough in Agra, Captain, at the Moghul’s court. Consider this evening a foretaste." Mukar­rab Khan tried to smile politely, but there was a strained look in his eyes and he fingered his jeweled ring uncomfort­ably. "You would favor me by speaking to them."

  The two Europeans were now moving toward them, working their way through the swarm of servants and crates in the courtyard. The ruby-studded crucifixes they wore against their black cassocks seemed to shoot red sparks into the evening air. Mukarrab Khan urged Hawksworth forward apprehensively.

  "May I have the pleasure to present Ambassador Brian Hawksworth, who represents His Majesty, King James of England, and is also, I believe, an official of England's East India Company.

  "And to you, Ambassador, I have the honor to introduce Father Alvarez Sarmento, Superior for the Society of Jesus' mission in Lahore, and Father Francisco da Silva."

  Hawksworth nodded lightly and examined them. Al­though Sarmento was aged, his face remained strong and purposeful, with hard cheeks and eyes that might burn through marble. The younger priest could not have been more different. His ruddy neck bulged from the tight collar of his cassock, and his eyes shifted uncomfortably behind his puffed cheeks. Hawksworth wondered absently how long his bloat—too much capon and port wine—would last if Mackintosh had him on the third watch for a month.

  "You are a celebrated man, Captain Hawksworth." Father Sarmento spoke in flawless Turki, but his voice was like ice. "There is much talk of you in Goa. The new Viceroy himself requested that we meet you, and convey a message."

  "His last message was to order an unlawful attack on my merchantmen. I think he still remembers my reply. Is he now offering to abide by the treaty your Spanish king signed with King James?"

  "That treaty has no force in Asia, Captain. His Excellency has asked us to inform you that your mission to Agra will not succeed. Our fathers have already informed the Moghul that England is a lawless nation living outside the grace of the Church. Perhaps you are unaware of the esteem he now holds for our Agra mission. We have a church there now, and through it we have led many carnal-minded Moors to God. We have refuted the Islamic mullahs in His Majesty's very presence, and shown him the falsity of their Prophet and his laws. Indeed, it is only because of the esteem we have earned that he now sends an ambassador to the Portuguese Viceroy."

  Before Hawksworth could respond, Father Sarmento suddenly reached out and touched his arm imploringly. "Captain, let me speak now not for the Viceroy, but for the Holy Church." Hawksworth realized with a shock that he was speaking English. "Do you understand the importance of God's work in this sea of damned souls? For decades we have toiled in this vineyard, teaching the Grace of God and His Holy Church, and now at last our prayers are near to answer. When Arangbar became Moghul, our Third Mission had already been here for ten long, fruitless years. We strove to teach the Grace of God to his father, Akman, but his damnation was he could never accept a single True Church. He would harken to a heathen fakir as readily as to a disciple of God. At first Arangbar seemed like him, save his failing was not ecumenicity. It was indifference, and suspicion. Now, after years of ignominy, we have secured his trust. And with that trust will soon come his soul." Sarmento paused to cross himself. "When at last a Christian holds the throne of India, there will be rejoicing at the Throne of Heaven. You may choose to live outside the Mystery of the Most Holy Sacrament, my son, but surely you would not wish to undo God's great work. I implore you not to go before the Moghul now, not to sow unrest in his believing mind with stories of the quarrels and hatreds of Europe. England was once in the bosom of the Holy Church, until your heretic King Henry; and England had returned again, before your last, heretic queen led you once more to damnation. Know the Church always stands with open heart to receive you, or any apostate Lutheran, who wishes to repent and save his immortal soul."

  "I see now why Jesuits are made diplomats. Is your concern the loss of the Moghul’s soul, or the loss of his trade revenues in Goa?" Hawksworth deliberately answered in Turki. "Tell your pope to stop trying to meddle in England's politics, and tell your Viceroy to honor our treaty and there'll be no 'quarrels' between us here."

  "Will you believe my word, sworn before God, that I have told His Excellency that very thing? That this new war could destroy our years of work and prayer." Sarmento still spoke in English. "But he is a man with a personal vendetta toward the English. It is our great tragedy. The Viceroy of Goa, His Excellency, Miguel Vaijantes, is a man nourished by hatred. May God forgive him."

  Hawksworth stood speechless as Father Sarmento crossed himself.

  "What did you say his name was?"

  "Miguel Vaijantes. He was in Goa as a young captain, and now he has returned as Viceroy. We must endure him for three more years. The Antichrist himself could not have made our cup more bitter, could not have given us a greater test of our Christian love. Do you understand now why I beg you in God's name to halt this war between us?"

  Hawksworth felt suddenly numb. He stumbled past the aged priest and blindly stared into the torchlit courtyard, trying to remember precisely what Roger Symmes had said that day so many years ago in the offices of the Levant Company. One of the few things he had never forgotten from Symmes's monologue of hallucinations and dreams was the name Miguel Vaijantes.

  Hawksworth slowly turned to face Father Sarmento and switched to English.

  "I will promise you this, Father. If I reach Agra, I will never speak of popery unless asked. It honestly doesn't interest me. I'm here on a mission, not a crusade. And in return I woul
d ask one favor of you. I would like you to send a message to Miguel Vaijantes. Tell him that twenty years ago in Goa he once ordered the death of an English captain named Hawksworth on the strappado. Tell him . . ."

  The crash of shattering glass from the hallway of the palace severed the air between them. Then the heavy bronze door swung wide and Shirin emerged, grasping the broken base of a Chinese vase. Her eyes blazed and her disheveled hair streamed out behind her. Hawksworth thought he saw a stain on one cheek where a tear had trailed, but now that trail was dry. She strode directly to Mukarrab Khan and dashed the remainder of the vase at his feet, where it shattered to powder on the marble tiles of the veranda.

  "That is my gift to the queen. You may send it with a message in your next dispatch. Tell her that I too am Persian, that I too know the name of my father's father, of his father's father, of his father's father, for ten generations. But unlike her, I was born in India. And it is in India that I will stay. She can banish me to the remotest village of the Punjab, but she will never send me to Goa. To live among unwashed Portuguese. Never. She does not have the power. And if you were a man, you would divorce me. Here. Tonight. For all to see. And I will return to my father, or go where I wish. Or you may kill me, as you have already tried to do. But you must decide."

  Mukarrab Khan's face was lost in shock. The courtyard stood lifeless, caught in a silence more powerful than any Hawksworth had ever known. He looked in confusion at Father Sarmento, and the old Jesuit quietly whispered a translation of the Persian, his own eyes wide in disbelief. Never before had he seen a Muslim woman defy her husband publicly. The humiliation was unthinkable. Mukarrab Khan had no power to order her death. He had no choice but to divorce her as she demanded. But everyone knew why she was his wife. What would a divorce mean?

  "You will proceed to Goa as my wife, or you will spend the rest of your days, and what little remains of your fading beauty, as a nautch girl at the port. Your price will be one copper pice. I will order it in the morning."

  "His Majesty will know of it within a week. I have friends enough in Agra."

  "As do I. And mine have the power to act."

  "Then divorce me."

  Mukarrab Khan paused painfully, then glanced down and absently whisked a fleck of lint from his brocade sleeve. "Which form do you wish?"

  An audible gasp passed through the servants, and not one breathed as they waited for the answer. There were three forms of divorce for Muslims. The first, called a revocable divorce, was performed when a man said "I have divorced you" only once. He had three months to reconsider and reconcile before it became final. The second form, called irrevocable, required the phrase be repeated twice, after which she could only become his wife again through a second marriage ceremony. The third, absolute, required three repetitions of the phrase and became effective the day her next reproductive cycle ended. There could be no remarriage unless she had, in the interim, been married to another.

  "Absolute."

  "Do you 'insist’?"

  "I do."

  "Then by law you must return the entire marriage settlement."

  "You took it from me and squandered it long ago on affion and pretty boys. What is left to return?"

  "Then it is done."

  Hawksworth watched in disbelief as Mukarrab Khan repeated three times the Arabic phrase from the Quran that cast her out. The two Jesuits also stood silently, their faces horrified.

  Shirin listened impassively as his voice echoed across the stunned courtyard. Then without a word she ripped the strands of pearls from her neck and threw them at his feet. Before Mukarrab Khan could speak again, she had turned and disappeared through the doorway of the palace.

  "In the eyes of God, Excellency, you will always be man and wife," Father Sarmento broke the silence. "What He has joined, man cannot rend."

  A look of great weariness seemed to flood Mukarrab Khan's face as he groped to find the facade of calm that protected him. Then, with an almost visible act of will, it came again.

  "Perhaps you understand now, Father, why the Prophet's laws grant us more than one wife. Allah allows for certain . . . mistakes." He forced a smile, then whirled on a wide-eyed eunuch. "Will the packing be finished by morning?"

  "As ordered, Khan Sahib." The eunuch snapped to formality.

  "Then see dinner is served my guests, or put my kitchen wallahs to the lash." He turned back to Hawksworth. "I'm told you met her once, Ambassador. I trust she was more pleasant then."

  "Merely by accident, Excellency. While I was at the . . . in the garden."

  "She does very little by accident. You should mark her well."

  "Your counsel is always welcome, Excellency." Hawks­worth felt his pulse surge. "What will she do now?"

  "I think she will have all her wishes granted." He turned wearily toward the marble columns of the veranda. "You will forgive me if I must leave you now for a while. You understand I have further dispatches to prepare."

  He turned and was gone. After a moment's pause, the despairing Jesuits trailed after.

  And suddenly the courtyard seemed empty.