The Moghul

with a wooden spatula. "For four or five days the body burns with intense heat, and then either it is gone or you are dead."
    "Are there no medicines?" Hawksworth watched as he began to spread the paste over the wound.
    "Of course there are medicines." Mukarjee chuckled resignedly. "But the Portuguese scorn to use them."
    "Probably wisely," Hawksworth reflected. "It's said the flux is caused by an excess of humors in the blood. Bleeding is the only real remedy."
    "I see." Mukarjee began to apply the paste and then to bind Hawksworth's leg with a swath of white cloth. "Yes, my friend, that is what the Portuguese do—you must hold still—and I have personally observed how effective it is in terminating illness."
    "The damned Jesuits are the best physicians in Europe."
    "So I have often been told. Most frequently at funerals." Mukarjee quickly tied a knot in the binding and spat another mouthful of red juice. "Your wound is really nothing more than a scratch. But you would have been dead in a fortnight. By this, if not by exertion."
    "What do you mean?" Hawksworth rose and tested his leg, amazed that the pain seemed to have vanished.
    "The greatest scourge of all for newly arrived Europeans here seems to be our women. It is inevitable, and my greatest source of amusement." He spat the exhausted betel leaf toward the corner of the room and paused dramatically while he prepared another.
    "Explain what you mean about the women."
    "Let me give you an example from Goa." Mukarjee squatted again. "The Portuguese soldiers arriving from Lisbon each year tumble from their ships more dead than alive, weak from months at sea and the inevitable scurvy. They are in need of proper food, but they pay no attention to this, for they are even more starved for the company of women. . . . By the way, how is your wound?" Mukarjee made no attempt to suppress a smile at Hawksworth's astonished testing of his leg.
    "The pain seems to be gone." He tried squatted in Indian style, like Mukarjee, and found that this posture, too, brought no discomfort.
    "Well, these scurvy-weakened soldiers immediately avail themselves of Goa's many well-staffed brothels—which, I note, Christians seem to frequent with greater devotion than their fine churches. What uneven test of skill and vigor transpires I would not speculate, but many of these feringhis soon find the only beds suited for them are in the Jesuit's Kings Hospital, where few ever leave. I watched some five hundred Portuguese a year tread this path of folly." Mukarjee's lips were now the hue of the rose.
    "And what happens to those who do live?"
    "They eventually wed one of our women, or one of their own, and embrace the life of sensuality that marks the Portuguese in Goa. With twenty, sometimes even thirty slaves to supply their wants and pleasure. And after a time they develop stones in the kidney, or gout, or some other affliction of excess."
    "What do their wives die of? The same thing?"
    "Some, yes, but I have also seen many charged with adultery by their fat Portuguese husbands—a suspicion rarely without grounds, for they really have nothing more to do on hot afternoons than chew betel and intrigue with the lusty young soldiers—and executed. The women are said to deem it an honorable martyrdom, vowing they die for love."
    Mukarjee rose and began meticulously replacing the vials in his cloth bag. "I may be allowed to visit you again if you wish, but I think there's no need. Only forgo the company of our women for a time, my friend. Practice prudence before pleasure."
    A shaft of light from the hallway cut across the room, as the door opened without warning. A guard stood in the passageway, wearing a uniform Hawksworth had not seen before.
    "I must be leaving now." Mukarjee's voice rose to public volume as he nervously scooped up his umbrella and his bag, without pausing to secure the knot at its top. Then he bent toward Hawksworth with a quick whisper. "Captain, the Shahbandar has sent his Rajputs. You must take care."
    He deftly slipped past the guard in the doorway and was gone.
    Hawksworth examined the Rajputs warily. They wore leather helmets secured with a colored headband, knee- length tunics over heavy tight-fitting trousers, and a broad cloth belt. A large round leather shield hung at each man's side, suspended from a shoulder strap, and each guard wore an ornate quiver at his waist from which protruded a heavy horn bow and bamboo arrows. All were intent and unsmiling. Their