The Moghul

rising with their hands on their forehead.
    Arangbar had changed to evening dress. He wore a dark velvet turban encrusted with jewels, tight-fitting patterned trousers beneath a transparent muslin skirt, and a gold brocade cinch at his waist. He clapped his hands in delight when he saw Hawksworth holding a wine cup.
    "The ambassador has already tasted our Persian wine. How do you find it, Ambassador . . . Khaw . . . ?" He stumbled over the name. "Wait. The first thing we must do is rename you. Henceforth we will call you 'Inglish.' Now, have we pronounced that properly?"
    "Perfectly, Your Majesty. And, so please Your Majesty, the wine is excellent, though perhaps not as sweet as the wines of Europe."
    "Every feringhi says the same, Inglish. But we will civilize you. And also teach you something about painting." He seized a glass of wine from a waiting eunuch and then shouted to Nadir Sharif, who had entered moments before from the back. "Where are my five paintings?"
    "I'm told they will be ready before Your Majesty retires. The painters are still hard at work, so please Your Majesty."
    "It does not please me, but then I have no wager." He roared with amusement. "Your stables will be reduced by a prize stallion come morning if the paintings are not ready soon. Look to it."
    As Nadir Sharif bowed in acknowledgment, Arangbar whirled to Hawksworth.
    "Tell me something about your king, Inglish? How many wives does he have? We have hundreds."
    "He has but one, Your Majesty, and I believe she is mostly for show. King James prefers the company of young men."
    "Very like most Christians I've met. And you, Inglish. Have you any wives?" Arangbar had already finished his first glass of wine and taken a second.
    "I have none, Your Majesty."
    "But you, I suspect, are not a Jesuit, or a eunuch."
    "No, Your Majesty."
    "Then we shall find you a wife, Inglish." He took a ball of opium and washed it down with wine. "No, we will find you two. Yes, you shall be well wived."
    "May it please Your Majesty, I have no means to care for a wife. I am here for only a season." Hawksworth shifted uncomfortably.
    "You will only leave Agra, Inglish, when it is our pleasure. But if you will not have a wife, you must at least have a house."
    "I am arranging it now, Your Majesty."
    Arangbar looked at Hawksworth sharply, then continued as though he had not heard.
    "Now tell us more about your king. We would know what he's like."
    Hawksworth bowed as he tried to collect his thoughts. The wine was already toying with his brain. Although most of what he knew about King James was hearsay, he knew he did not care for England's new king overly much. No English subject did. And idle seamen had reason to dislike him the most of all. He was not the sovereign Elizabeth had been.
    "He's of middle stature, Your Majesty, not overly fat though he seems so since he always wears quilted, stiletto-proof doublets."
    Arangbar seemed surprised. "Is he not safe? Has he no guards?"
    "He's a prudent man, Your Majesty, as befits a sovereign." And, Hawksworth thought, also a coward, if you believe the talk in London. What all men know for fact, though, is that he's a weakling, whose legs are so spindly he has to be helped to walk, leaning on other men's shoulders while he fiddles spastically with his codpiece.
    "Does your king wear many jewels, Ambassador Inglish?"
    "Of course, Your Majesty." Hawksworth drank calmly from his wine cup, hoping the lie would pass unnoticed.
    What would the Moghul think if he knew the truth, Hawksworth asked himself? That King James of England only changes his clothes when they are rags, and his fashion never. He was once, they say, given a Spanish-style hat, and he cast it away, swearing he loved neither them nor their fashions. Another time he was given shoes with brocade roses on them, and he railed at the giver, asking if he was to be made a ruff-footed dove.
    "Is your king generous of nature, Ambassador? We are loved by our people because we give of our bounty on every holy day. Baskets of silver rupees are flung down the streets of Agra."
    "King James is giving also, Your Majesty." With the moneys of others. He'd part willingly with a hundred pounds not in his own keeping before he'd release ten shillings from his private purse. And it's said he'd rather spend a hundred thousand pounds on embassies abroad, buying peace with bribes, than ten thousand on an army that would enforce peace with honor. "He is a man among men, Your Majesty, admired