The Moghul

speaking English. "Do you understand the importance of God's work in this sea of damned souls? For decades we have toiled in this vineyard, teaching the Grace of God and His Holy Church, and now at last our prayers are near to answer. When Arangbar became Moghul, our Third Mission had already been here for ten long, fruitless years. We strove to teach the Grace of God to his father, Akman, but his damnation was he could never accept a single True Church. He would harken to a heathen fakir as readily as to a disciple of God. At first Arangbar seemed like him, save his failing was not ecumenicity. It was indifference, and suspicion. Now, after years of ignominy, we have secured his trust. And with that trust will soon come his soul." Sarmento paused to cross himself. "When at last a Christian holds the throne of India, there will be rejoicing at the Throne of Heaven. You may choose to live outside the Mystery of the Most Holy Sacrament, my son, but surely you would not wish to undo God's great work. I implore you not to go before the Moghul now, not to sow unrest in his believing mind with stories of the quarrels and hatreds of Europe. England was once in the bosom of the Holy Church, until your heretic King Henry; and England had returned again, before your last, heretic queen led you once more to damnation. Know the Church always stands with open heart to receive you, or any apostate Lutheran, who wishes to repent and save his immortal soul."
    "I see now why Jesuits are made diplomats. Is your concern the loss of the Moghul’s soul, or the loss of his trade revenues in Goa?" Hawksworth deliberately answered in Turki. "Tell your pope to stop trying to meddle in England's politics, and tell your Viceroy to honor our treaty and there'll be no 'quarrels' between us here."
    "Will you believe my word, sworn before God, that I have told His Excellency that very thing? That this new war could destroy our years of work and prayer." Sarmento still spoke in English. "But he is a man with a personal vendetta toward the English. It is our great tragedy. The Viceroy of Goa, His Excellency, Miguel Vaijantes, is a man nourished by hatred. May God forgive him."
    Hawksworth stood speechless as Father Sarmento crossed himself.
    "What did you say his name was?"
    "Miguel Vaijantes. He was in Goa as a young captain, and now he has returned as Viceroy. We must endure him for three more years. The Antichrist himself could not have made our cup more bitter, could not have given us a greater test of our Christian love. Do you understand now why I beg you in God's name to halt this war between us?"
    Hawksworth felt suddenly numb. He stumbled past the aged priest and blindly stared into the torchlit courtyard, trying to remember precisely what Roger Symmes had said that day so many years ago in the offices of the Levant Company. One of the few things he had never forgotten from Symmes's monologue of hallucinations and dreams was the name Miguel Vaijantes.
    Hawksworth slowly turned to face Father Sarmento and switched to English.
    "I will promise you this, Father. If I reach Agra, I will never speak of popery unless asked. It honestly doesn't interest me. I'm here on a mission, not a crusade. And in return I would ask one favor of you. I would like you to send a message to Miguel Vaijantes. Tell him that twenty years ago in Goa he once ordered the death of an English captain named Hawksworth on the strappado . Tell him . . ."
    The crash of shattering glass from the hallway of the palace severed the air between them. Then the heavy bronze door swung wide and Shirin emerged, grasping the broken base of a Chinese vase. Her eyes blazed and her disheveled hair streamed out behind her. Hawksworth thought he saw a stain on one cheek where a tear had trailed, but now that trail was dry. She strode directly to Mukarrab Khan and dashed the remainder of the vase at his feet, where it shattered to powder on the marble tiles of the veranda.
    "That is my gift to the queen. You may send it with a message in your next dispatch. Tell her that I too am Persian, that I too know the name of my father's father, of his father's father, of his father's father, for ten generations. But unlike her, I was born in India. And it is in India that I will stay. She can banish me to the remotest village of the Punjab, but she will never send me to Goa. To live among unwashed Portuguese. Never. She does not have the power. And if you were a man, you would divorce me. Here.