The Moghul

he took Shirin's arm, leading her around the side of their rise and back into the morning cool. Ahead of them lay yet another bleak valley, rocky and sere. "I sometimes wonder how you can survive here in summer. It was already autumn when I made landfall and the heat was still unbearable."
    "Late spring is even worse than summer. At least in summer there's rain. But we're accustomed to the heat. We say no feringhi ever gets used to it. I don't think anyone from your England could ever really love or understand India."
    "Don't give up hope yet. I'm starting to like it." He took her chin in his hand and carefully studied her face with a scrutinizing frown, his eyes playing critically from her eyes to her mouth to her vaguely aquiline Persian nose. "What part do I like best?" He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. "I think it's the diamond you wear in your left nostril."
    "All women wear those!" She bit at him. "So I have to also. But I've never liked it. You'd better think of something else."
    He slipped his arm around her and held her next to him, wondering if he should tell her of his bargain with Arangbar—that she had been released only because he had offered to take her from India forever. For a moment the temptation was powerful, but he resisted. Not yet. Don't give her a chance to turn headstrong and refuse.
    "You know, I think you'd like England once you saw it. Even with no elephants, and no slaves to fan away the flies. We're not as primitive as you seem to imagine. We have music, and if you'd learn our language, you might discover England has many fine poets."
    "Like the one you once recited for me?" She turned to face him. "What was his name?"
    "That was John Donne. I hear he's a cleric now, so I doubt he's writing his randy poems and songs any more. But there are others. Like Sir Walter Raleigh, a staunch adventurer who writes passable verse, and there's also Ben Jonson, who writes poems, and plays also. In fact, lots of English plays are in verse."
    "What do you mean by plays?"
    "English plays. They're like nothing else in the world." He stared wistfully into the parched valley spread out before them. "Sometimes I think they're what I miss most about London when I'm away."
    "Well, what are they?"
    "They're stories that are acted out by players. In playhouses."
    She laughed. "Then perhaps you should begin by explaining a playhouse."
    "The best one is the Globe, which is just across the Thames from London, in the Bankside edge of Southwark, near the bridge. It was built by some merchants and by an actor from Stratford-up-on-Avon, who also writes their plays. It's three stories high and circular, with high balconies. And there's a covered stage at one side, where the players perform."
    "Do the women in these plays dance, like our devadasis ?"
    "Actually the players are all men. Sometimes they take the roles of women, but I've never seen them dance all that much. There are plays about famous English kings, and sometimes there are stories of thwarted love, usually set in Italy. Plays are a new thing in England, and there's nothing like them anywhere else."
    Shirin settled against a boulder and watched the shadows cast by the rising sun stretch out across the valley. She sat thoughtfully for a moment and then she laughed. "What would you say if I told you India had dramas about kings and thwarted love over a thousand years ago? They were in Sanskrit, and they were written by men named Bhavabhuti and Bhasa and Kalidasa, whose lives are legends now. A pandit, that's the title Hindus give their scholars, once told me about a play called The Clay Cart. It was about a poor king who fell in love with a rich courtesan. But there are no plays here now, unless you count the dance dramas they have in the south. Sanskrit is a dead language, and Muslims don't really care for plays."
    "I'll wager you'd like the plays in London. They're exciting, and sometimes the poetry can be very moving."
    "What's it like to go to see one?"
    "First, on the day a play is performed they fly a big white banner of silk from a staff atop the Globe, and you can see it all over London. The admission is only a penny for old plays and two pence for new ones. That's all you ever have to pay if you're willing to stand in the pit. If you want to pay a little more, you can get a seat in the galleries around the side, up out of the dust and chips, and for a little extra you can get a cushion for the seat. Or for sixpence you can enter directly