The Moghul

again after tonight. Tomorrow you'll be getting ready to leave for Agra. Khan Sahib told me I'm not to come to you any more after this. I think he's very upset about something that happened with your ships."
    "I'm very upset about it too." Hawksworth studied her. "What exactly did he say?"
    "No, I've told you enough already. Too much." She pinched his toe. "Now. You will keep your promise, my love. And then after tonight you can forget me."
    Hawksworth was watching her, entranced. "I'll never forget you."
    She tried to smile. "Oh yes you will. I know men better than that. But I'll always remember you. When a man and a woman share their bodies with each other, a bond is made between them. It's never entirely forgotten, at least by me. So tonight, our last night, I want you to let me give you something of mine to keep."
    She reached under the couch and withdrew a box, teakwood and trimmed in gold. She placed it on the velvet tapestry between them.
    "I've never shown this to a feringhi before, but I want you to have it. To make you remember me, at least for a while."
    "I've never had a present from an Indian woman before." Hawksworth carefully opened the box's gold latch. Inside was a book, bound in leather and gilded, with exquisite calligraphy on its cover.
    "It's called the Ananga-Ranga, the Pleasures of Women. It was written over a hundred years ago by a Brahmin poet who called himself Kalyana Mai. He wrote it in Sanskrit for his patron, the Viceroy of Gujarat, the same province where you are now."
    "But why are you giving it to me?" Hawksworth looked into her eyes. "I'll remember you without a book. I promise."
    "And I'll remember you. You've given me much pleasure. But there are those in India who believe the union of man and woman should be more than pleasure. The Hindus believe this union is an expression of all the sacred forces of life. You know I'm not a Hindu. I'm a Muslim courtesan. So for me lovemaking is only to give you pleasure. But I want you to know there's still more, beyond what we've had together, beyond my skills and knowledge. According to the Hindu teachings, the union of male and female is a way to reach the divine nature. That's why I want you to have this book. It describes the many different orders of women, and tells how to share pleasure with each. It tells of many things beyond what I know."
    She took the leatherbound copy of the Ananga-Ranga and opened it to the first page. The calligraphy was bold and sensuous.
    "In this book Kalyana Mai explains that there are four orders of women. The three highest orders he calls the Lotus Woman, the Art Woman, and the Conch Woman. The rest he dismisses as Elephant Women."
    Hawksworth took the book and examined its pages for a time. There were many paintings, small colored miniatures of couples pleasuring one another in postures that seemed astounding. Finally he mounted his courage.
    "Which 'order' of woman are you?"
    "I think I must be the third order, the Conch Woman. The book says that the Conch Woman delights in clothes, flowers, red ornaments. That she is given to fits of amorous passion, which make her head and mind confused, and at the moment of exquisite pleasure, she thrusts her nails into the man's flesh. Have you ever noticed me do that?"
    Hawksworth felt the scratches along his chest and smiled. Only in India, he thought, could you make love so many ways, all kneeling before a woman rather than lying with her. So she scratches you on the chest.
    "So far it sounds a bit like you."
    "And it says the Conch Woman's love cleft, what the Hindus call her yoni , is always moist with kama salila , the woman's love seed. And its taste is salt. Does that also remind you of me?"
    Hawksworth was startled with wry delight when he realized he actually knew the answer. Something he'd never had the slightest desire to know about a woman in England.
    In England. Where baths were limited to the face, neck, hands, and feet—and those only once every few weeks. Where women wore unwashed petticoats and stays until they literally fell off. Where a member of the peerage was recently quoted as complaining "the nobler parts are never in this island washed by the women; they are left to be lathered by the men."
    But Kali was scrubbed and perfumed each day like a flower. And she had taught him the pleasure in the taste of all her body.
    "I guess that makes you a Conch Woman. But what are the others supposed to be like?"
    "Let me tell you what it says." She reached