The Moghul

through the stage door and sit in a stall at the side of the stage. Just before the play begins there's a trumpet fanfare— like Arangbar has when he enters the Diwan-i-Am —and the doorkeepers pass through the galleries to collect the money."
    "What do they do with it?"
    "They put it into a locked box," Hawksworth grinned, "which wags have taken to calling the box office, because they're so officious about it. But the money's perfectly safe. Plays are in the afternoon, while there's daylight."
    "But aren't they performed inside this building?" Shirin seemed to be only half listening.
    "The Globe has an open roof except over the stage. But if it gets too dull on winter afternoons, they light the stage with torches of burning pitch or tar."
    "Who exactly goes to these playhouses?"
    "Everyone. Except maybe the Puritans. Anybody can afford a penny. And the Globe is not that far from the Southwark bear gardens, so a lot of people come after they've been to see bearbaiting. The pit is usually full of rowdy tradesmen, who stand around the stage and turn the air blue with tobacco smoke."
    "So high-caste women and women from good families wouldn't go."
    "Of course women go." Hawksworth tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. "There are gallants in London who'll tell you the Globe is the perfect place to spot a comely wench, or even a woman of fashion looking for some sport while her husband's drunk at a gaming house."
    "I don't believe such things happen."
    "Well that's the way it is in England." Hawksworth settled against the boulder. "You have to understand women there don't let themselves be locked up and hidden behind veils. So if a cavalier spies a comely woman at the Globe, he'll find a way to praise her dress, or her figure, and then he'll offer to sit next to her, you know, just to make sure some rude fellow doesn't trod on the hem of her petticoats with muddy boots, and no chips fall in her lap. Then after the play begins, he'll buy her a bag of roasted chestnuts, or maybe some oranges from one of the orange-wenches walking through the galleries. And if she carries on with him a bit, he'll offer to squire her home."
    "I suppose you've done just that?" She examined him in dismay.
    Hawksworth shifted, avoiding her gaze. "I've mainly heard of it."
    "Well, I don't enjoy hearing about it. What about the honor of these women's families? They sound reprehensible, with less dignity than nautch girls."
    "Oh no, they're very different." He turned with a wink and tweaked her ear. "They don't dance."
    "That's even worse. At least most nautch girls have some training."
    "You already think English women are wicked, and you've never even met one. That's not fair. But I think you'd come to love England. If we were in London now, right this minute, we could hire one of those coaches you don't believe exist . . . a coach with two horses and a coachman cost scarcely more than ten shillings a day, if prices haven't gone up . . . and ride out to a country inn. Just outside London the country is as green as Nadir Sharif’s palace garden, with fields and hedgerows that look like a great patchwork coverlet sewed by some sotted alewife." Hawksworth's chest tightened with homesickness. "If you want to look like an Englishwoman, you could powder your breasts with white lead, and rouge your nipples, and maybe paste some beauty stars on your cheeks. I'll dine you on goose and veal and capon and nappy English ale. And English mutton dripping with more fat than any lamb you'll taste in Agra."
    Shirin studied him silently for a moment. "You love to talk of England, don't you? But I'd rather you talked about India. I want you to stay. Why would you ever want to leave?"
    "I'm trying to tell you you'd love England if you gave yourself a chance. I'll have the firman soon, and when I return the East India Company will . . ."
    "Arangbar will never sign a firman for the English king to trade. Don't you realize Queen Janahara will never allow it?"
    "Right now I'm less worried about the queen than about Jadar. I think he wants to stop the firman too, why I don't know, but he's succeeded so far. He almost stopped it permanently with his false rumor about the fleet. He did it deliberately to raise Arangbar's hopes and then disappoint him, with the blame falling on me. Who knows what he'll think to do next?"
    "You're so wrong about him. That had nothing to do with you. Don't you understand why he had to do that? You never once asked me."
    Hawksworth