The Moghul

"Have you found profit in it?"
    "Enough. But it is not your place to question me, Captain Hawksworth."
    "Then you may wish to profit through English trade as well."
    "And your merchants, I assume, also expect to profit here."
    "That's the normal basis of trade." Hawksworth shifted, easing his leg.
    The Shahbandar glanced downward, but without removing his lips from the tube of the hookah. "I notice you have a wound, Captain Hawksworth. Yours would seem a perilous profession."
    "It's sometimes even more perilous for our enemies."
    "I presume you mean the Portuguese." The Shahbandar cursed the servant anew and called for a new taper to fire the hookah. "But their perils are over. Yours have only begun. Surely you do not expect they will allow you to trade here."
    "Trade here is a matter between England and India. It does not involve the Portugals."
    The Shahbandar smiled. "But we have a trade agreement with the Portuguese, a firman signed by His Majesty, the Moghul of India, allowing them free access to our ports. We have no such agreement with England."
    "Then we were mistaken. We believed the port of Surat belonged to India, not to the Portugals." Hawksworth felt his palms moisten at the growing game of nerves. "India, you would say, has no ports of her own. No authority to trade with whom she will."
    "You come to our door with warfare and insolence, Captain Hawksworth. Perhaps I would have been surprised if you had done otherwise." The Shahbandar paused to draw thoughtfully on the smoking mouthpiece. "Why should I expect this? Although you would not ask, let me assume you have. The reputation of English sea dogs is not unknown in the Indies."
    "And I can easily guess who brought you these libelous reports of England. Perhaps you should examine their motives."
    "We have received guidance in our judgment from those we have trusted for many years." The Shahbandar waved aside the hookah and fixed Hawksworth with a hard gaze.
    Hawksworth returned the unblinking stare for a moment while an idea formed in his mind. "I believe it once was written, 'There are those who purchase error at the price of guidance, so their commerce does not prosper. Neither are they guided.'"
    A sudden hush enveloped the room as the Shahbandar examined Hawksworth with uncharacteristic surprise. For a moment his eyes seemed lost in concentration, then they quickly regained their focus. "The Holy Quran—Surah II, if I have not lost the lessons of my youth." He stopped and smiled in disbelief. "It's impossible a topiwallah should know the words of the Merciful Prophet, on whom be peace. You are a man of curious parts, English captain." Again he paused. "And you dissemble with all the guile of a mullah ."
    "I merely speak the truth."
    "Then speak the truth to me now, Captain Hawksworth. Is it not true the English are a notorious nation of pirates? That your merchants live off the commerce of others, pillaging where they see fit. Should I not inquire, therefore, whether you intrude into our waters for the same purpose?"
    "England has warred in years past on her rightful enemies. But our wars are over. The East India Company was founded for peaceful trade. And the Company is here for no purpose but to trade peacefully with merchants in Surat." Hawksworth dutifully pressed forward. "Our two merchantmen bring a rich store of English goods—woolens, ironwork, lead . . ."
    "While you war with the Portuguese, in sight of our very shores. Will you next make war on our own merchants? I'm told it is your historic livelihood."
    As he studied Hawksworth, the Shahbandar found himself reflecting on the previous evening. The sun had set and the Ramadan meal was already underway when Father Manoel Pinheiro, the second-ranked Portuguese Jesuit in India, had appeared at his gates demanding an audience.
    For two tiresome hours he had endured the Jesuit's pained excuses for Portugal's latest humiliation at sea. And his boasts that the English would never survive a trip upriver. And for the first time Mirza Nuruddin could remember, he had smelled fear.
    Mirza Nuruddin had sensed no fear in the Portuguese eight years before, when an English captain named Lancaster had attacked and pillaged a Portuguese galleon in the seas off Java. Then the Viceroy of Goa brayed he would know retribution, although nothing was ever done. And a mere five years ago the Viceroy himself led a fleet of twelve warships to Malacca boasting to burn the eleven Dutch merchantmen lading there. And