The Moghul

we must guide our lives by the Laws of the Prophet, but Sufis know God can only be reached through love. A pure life counts for nothing if the heart is impure. Prayers five times a day are empty words if there is no love." Samad paused again, and then spoke slowly and quietly. "I am trying to decide if then is love about you, English."
    "You seem to think you know a lot about me. There's only one person who wanted me to meet you. And she was in Surat. Where is she now? Is she here?"
    "She's no longer in Surat. Be sure of that. But at this moment you are here with me. Why always seek after what you do not have? You see, I do know much about you. You're a pilgrim." He waved his hand absently. "But then we all are pilgrims. All searching for something. We call it different names—fulfillment, knowledge, beauty, God. But you still have not found what you seek, is that not true?' Samad watched Hawksworth in silence as he drank from his own wineglass. "Yes, it is given many names, but it is in fact only one thing. We are all searching, my English, for our own self. But the self is not easy to find, so we travel afar, hoping it lies elsewhere. Searching inward in a much more difficult journey."
    Hawksworth started to speak, but Samad silenced him with a wave of the hand. "Know that you will find the thing you most want only when you cease to search. Only then can you listen to the quiet of the heart, only then can you find true content." Samad drank again from his wine. "This last week you have found, so you think, your fortune. You have received worldly honors from the Moghul, you have news of imminent success for your English king. But these things will only bring you despair in the end."
    "I don't understand what you mean."
    Samad laughed and finished off his glass. "Then let me tell you a story about myself, English. I was born a Persian Jew, a merchant at my birth by historic family vocation. But my people have ignored the greatest Prophet of all, the Prophet Mohammed. His voice invites all, and I heard that voice. I became Muslim, but still I was a merchant. A Persian merchant. And, perhaps not unlike you, I traveled to India search of . . . not the greater Prophet, but the baser profit. And here, my English, I found the other thing I searched for. I found love. Pure love, consuming love. The kind of love few men are privileged to know. The love of a boy whose beauty and purity could only have come from God. But this love was mistaken by the world, was called impure, and he was hidden from me. So the only one left for me to love was God. Thus I cast away my garments, my worldliness, and gave myself to Him. And once more I was misunderstood."
    Samad paused and called for another glass of wine. Then he turned back to Hawksworth. "So I have told the world my story in verse. And now there are many who understand. Not the mullahs, but the people. I have given them words that could only come from a pure heart, words of joy that all men can share." Samad stopped and smiled. "You know we Persians are born poets. It's said we changed Sufism from mystic speculation to mystic art. All I know is the great poets of Persia found in Sufism a vehicle for their art that gave back to Islam almost more than it took. But then a poet's vocation must always be to give. I have given the people of India my heart, and they have loved me in return. Yet such love engenders envy in the minds of men who know it not. The Shi'ite mullahs would have condemned me for heresy long ago were it not for one man, a man who has understood and protected me. The only man in India who is not afraid of he Persian Shi'ites at court. And now he too is gone. With him went my life."
    "And who was that?"
    "Can you not guess? You have already met him." Samad smiled. "Prince Jadar."
    Hawksworth suddenly felt as though the world had closed about him.
    "Why did you contrive to get me here tonight?"
    "Because I wished to see you. And I can no longer walk abroad. It has been forbidden on pain of death. But death is something I am almost ready to welcome. One day soon I will walk the streets of Agra once more, for the last time.
    Hawksworth wondered if the claim was bravado, or truth.
    "But why did you want to see me?" Hawksworth studied Samad closely. Suddenly he decided to ask the question directly. "To ask me to help Jadar? You can tell him for me that I want no part of his politics. I'm here to get a trade agreement, a firman . That's my mission, why I was