The Moghul

drew slowly on his hookah and squinted with his opaque, glassy eyes at the black seal of Mukarrab Khan affixed to the top of the page. Hawksworth had waited for a glimmer of anger at this insulting breach of port protocol—which surely was Mukarrab Khan's reason for insisting the license be delivered by the English Captain-General. But the Shahbandar's eyes never lost their noncommittal squint. Instead he had turned to Hawksworth with a cordial smile. "Your refusal to negotiate seems to have worked remarkable dispatch with His Excellency's officials. I can't recall ever seeing them act this quickly."
    Hawksworth had been amazed. How could Mirza Nuruddin possibly know the terms he had demanded of the governor: produce a license for trade within ten days or the two English frigates would weigh anchor and sail; and accept English sovereigns at bullion value rather than the prevailing discount rate of 4 1/2 percent required to circumvent "minting time," the weeks "required" by the Shahbandar's minters to melt down foreign coin and re-mint it as Indian rupees.
    No one could have been more surprised than Brian Hawksworth when Mukarrab Khan had immediately conceded the English terms and approved the license—valid for sixty days—to land goods, and to buy and sell. Why had the governor agreed so readily, overriding the Shahbandar's dawdling clerks?
    "Naturally you'll need an officer here to schedule the river barks." The Shahbandar's voice was even, but Hawksworth thought he sensed an air of tension suddenly grip the room. "Normally barks are reserved weeks in advance now during the high season, but we can always accommodate friends of Mukarrab Khan."
    It was then that Hawksworth had told the Shahbandar he would not be bringing cargo up the river, that instead it would be transported overland from their protected anchorage using bullock carts arranged for by Mukarrab Khan.
    "The cove you call Swalley is several leagues up the coast, Captain. Foreign cargo has never before been unladed there, nor has it ever been brought overland as you propose." He had seemed genuinely disturbed. "I suggest it's both irregular and unworkable."
    "I think you understand why we have to unlade from the cove. The decision is made." Hawksworth tried to keep his voice as firm as that of Mirza Nuruddin. "We'll unload the bullock carts just across the river from the port here, and we'll only need a bark to ferry goods across the harbor."
    "As you wish. I'll arrange to have one at your disposal." The Shahbandar drew pensively on the hookah, ejecting coils of smoke into the already dense air of the chamber, and examined Hawksworth. Then he continued. "I understand your frigates are some five hundred tons each. Full unlading will require at least three weeks, perhaps four. Is that a reasonable estimate?"
    "We'll arrange the scheduling. Why do you ask?"
    "Merely for information, Captain." Again the Shahbandar flashed his empty smile. Then he bowed as lightly as protocol would admit and called for a tray of rolled betel leaves, signifying the meeting was ended. As Hawksworth took one, he marveled that he had so quickly acquired a taste for their strange alkaline sweetness. Then he looked again at Mirza Nuruddin's impassive eyes.
    Damn him. Does he know what the Portugals were planning? And was he hoping we'd be caught unlading in the shallows at the river mouth? He knows I've just spoiled their plans.
    As he had passed back through the customs shed headed toward the maidan and sunshine, Hawksworth could feel the hostile stares. And he knew the reason.
    The new English visitors had already made an unforgettable impression on the town of Surat. The merchants George Elkington and Humphrey Spencer had been given accommodations by a Portuguese-speaking Muslim, whom Spencer had immediately outraged by demanding they be served pork. The other men had been temporarily lodged in a vacant house owned by an indigo broker. After the hard-drinking English seamen had disrupted orderly proceedings in three separate brothels, and been banned in turn by each, the Shahbandar had ordered five nautch girls sent to them at the house. But with fewer women than men, a fight inevitably had ensued, with thorough demolition of the plaster walls and shutters.
    Worst of all, bosun's mate John Garway had gone on a drunken spree in the streets and, in a flourish of exuberance, severed the tail of a bullock calf—an animal sacred to the Hindus—with his seaman's knife. A riot in