The Moghul

man had his hand loosely on his sword.
    The door creaked slowly inward, and Hawksworth realized it was almost a foot thick and probably weighed tons. The guards motioned him forward and stood stiffly waiting for him to move. He calculated his chances one more time, and with a shrug, walked through.
    The room was enormous, with a high vaulted stone ceiling and a back wall lost in its smoky recesses. Rows of oil lamps trailed down the walls on either side of the door. The walls themselves were heavy gray blocks of cut stone, carefully smoothed until they fit seamlessly together without mortar. He asked himself how air reached the room, then he traced the lamp smoke upward and noticed it disappeared through ornate carvings that decorated the high roof of the chamber.
    A heavy slam echoed off the walls and he turned to see the door had been sealed. As his eyes adjusted to the lamplight he searched the chamber. All he could see were long, neat rows of bundles, lining the length of the stone floor. With a shock he realized they were the bundles from the caravan. Otherwise the room seemed empty.
    At that moment he caught a flicker of movement, a tall figure at the far end of the chamber, passing shadowlike among the bundles, an apparition. Then a voice sounded through the dense air.
    "At last we meet." The stone walls threw back an eerie echo. "Is the place to your liking?"
    "I prefer sunlight." Hawksworth felt the cool of the room envelop his skin. "Where I can see who I'm talking to."
    "You are speaking to Prince Shapur Firdawsi Jadar, third son of the Moghul. It's customary to salaam, Captain- General Hawksworth."
    "I speak for His Majesty, King James the First of England. The sons of kings normally bow before him."
    "When I meet him, perhaps I will bow." Jadar emerged from among the bundles. He had an elegant short beard and seemed much younger, somehow, than Hawksworth had expected. "I'm surprised to see you alive, Captain. How is it you still live while so many of my Rajputs died?"
    "I live by my wits, not by my caste."
    Jadar roared with genuine delight.
    "Spoken like a Moghul." Then he sobered. "You'd be wise never to say that to a Rajput, however. I often wonder how an army of Moghul troops would fare against a division of Hindu unbelievers. I pray to Allah I never find out." Jadar suddenly slipped a dagger from his waist and held it loosely, fingering the blade. " Feringhi Christians would be another matter entirely, however. Did you come unarmed, Captain, as we agreed?"
    "I did." Hawksworth stared at the knife in dismay.
    "Come, Captain, please don't ask me to believe you'd be such a fool." Jadar slipped the dagger into his other hand with a quick twist and tossed it atop one of the bundles. "But this meeting must be held in trust. I ask that you leave your weapon beside mine."
    Hawksworth hesitated, then slowly reached into his boot and withdrew a small stiletto, the Portuguese knife left at the observatory. As he dropped it beside Jadar's weapon, he noticed the prince's knife was missing half its handle.
    Jadar smiled. "You know, Captain, if I killed you here, now, there would be no witness to the deed, save your Christian God."
    "Do you plan to try?"
    "I do not 'try' to do anything, Captain." Jadar opened his hand to reveal that a dagger remained. It was the other side of his original knife, which had been two blades fitted to appear as one. "What I do, Captain, is merely a matter of what I decide to do. Right now I have serious misgivings about your intentions in India."
    Jadar's blade glinted in the lamplight as he moved toward Hawksworth.
    "Is this your greeting for any who refuse to salaam ?"
    Hawksworth took a step backward toward the door, feinted toward his boot, and rose with a cocked pistol leveled directly at Jadar. "What game is this?"
    The prince exploded with laughter, and before Hawksworth caught the quick motion of his arm, the knife thudded deeply into the wooden door behind him.
    "Well done, Captain. Very well done." Jadar beamed in appreciation. "You are, as I suspected, truly without the smallest shred of Rajput honor. Put away your pistol. I think we can talk. And by the way, there are twenty matchlocks trained on you right now." He waved toward the vaulted ceiling of the crypt, where dark musket barrels were visible through slits in the carved decoration. He barked a command in Urdu and the barrels slowly withdrew.
    "Why don't we talk about releasing me and my chest to travel on to Agra."