The night sky above the courtyard was afire, an overturned jewel box strewn about an ivory moon. They passed through a gateway of carved columns and ornate brackets, into a smaller plaza. The mosque was left behind: around them low were empty pavilions, several stories high, decorated with whimsical carvings, railings, cornices. Now they were alone in the abandoned palace, surrounded by silence and moonlight. Only then did she speak, her voice opening through the stillness.
"I promised to think of you, and I have, more than you can know. Tonight I want to share this with you. The private palace of the Great Akman. The most beautiful place in all India." She paused and pointed to a wide marble pond in the middle of the plaza. In its center was a platform, surrounded by a railing and joined to the banks by delicate bridges. "They say when Akman's court musician, the revered Tansen, sat there and sang a raga for the rainy season, the clouds themselves would come to listen, and bless the earth with their tears. Once all this was covered by one magnificent canopy. Tonight we have only the stars."
"How did you arrange this?" He still was lost in astonishment.
"Don't ask me to tell you now. Can we just share this moment?"
She took his arm and motioned ahead. There, glistening in the moonlight, were the open arcades of a palace pavilion. I've prepared something especially for us." She guided him through a wide-open archway and into a large arcade, illuminated by a single oil lamp atop a stone table. In front of them, on the walls, were brilliantly colored renderings of elephants, horses, birds. She picked up the lamp and led him past the paintings and into the next room, a vast red chamber whose floor was a fragrant standing pool of water. In the flickering light he could see a marble stairway leading to a red sandstone platform projecting out over the water, supported by square stone columns topped by ornate brackets.
"This is where Akman spent the hot summer nights. Up there, on the platform, above a cooling pool of rosewater. From there he would summon his women to come to him from the zenana."
Hawksworth dipped his fingers into the water and brought it to his lips. It was like perfume. He turned to he and she smiled.
"Yes, the Sufis still keep rosewater here, in memory of Akman." She urged him forward, up the stairs. "Come and together we'll try to imagine how it must have felt to be the Great Moghul of India."
As they emerged onto the platform, the vaulted ceiling above them glowed a ruby red from the lamp. Under their feet was a thick carpet, strewn with small velvet bolsters. At the farthest edge was a large sleeping couch, fashioned from red marble, its dark velvet canopy held aloft by four finely worked stone columns. The covering of the couch was a patterned blue velvet, bordered in gold lace.
"Just for tonight I've made this room like it was when Akman slept here, with his chosen from the zenana." She slipped the gauze wrap from her shoulders. He looked at her dark hair, secured with a transparent scarf and a strand of pearls, and realized it contrasted perfectly with the green emerald brooch that swung gently against her forehead. She wore a necklace of pearl strands and about each upper arm was a band ringed with pearl drops. Her eyes and eyebrows were painted dark with kohl and her lips were a brilliant red
Without a word she took a garland of yellow flowers from the bed and gently slipped it over his head. Next to the couch was a round rosewood table holding several small brass vials of perfume and incense. "Tonight this room is like a bridal chamber. For us."
A second garland of flowers lay on the bed next to the one she had taken. Without thinking, he reached and took it and slipped it around her neck. Then he drew his fingertips slowly down her arm, sending a small shiver through them both. Seeing her in the lamplight, he realized again how he had ached for her.
"A wedding? For us?"
"Not a wedding. Can we just call it a new beginning? The end of one journey and the beginning of another."
Hawksworth heard a sudden rustling behind him and then a sound. He turned and searched the gloom, where two eyes peered out of the darkness, reflecting the lamplight. He was reaching for his pistol when she stopped his arm.
"That's one of the little green parrots who live here. They've never been harmed, and they've never been caged. So they're unafraid." She turned and called to it. "If they're caught and imprisoned, their spirit dies and their beauty starts to fade."
The bird ruffled its wings again and flew to the top of the bolster beside Shirin. Hawksworth watched her for a moment, still incredulous, then settled himself on the carpet next to a chalice of wine that sat waiting. She reached and touched his arm. "I never asked you what your lovers call you. You're so important, nobody in India knows your first name, just your titles."
"My only other name is Brian." He found her touch had already begun to stir him.
"Brian. Will you tell me everything about you, what you like and what you don't?" She began to pour the wine for them. "Did I ever tell you what I like most about you?"
"In Surat you said you liked the fact I was a European. Who always had to be master of worldly things."
"Well, I've thought about you a lot since then." Her expression grew pensive. "I've decided it's not so simple. There's a directness about you, and an openness, an honesty, that's very appealing."
"That's European. We're not very good at intrigue. What we're thinking always shows on our face."
She laughed. "And I think I know what you're thinking right now. But let me finish. I feel I must tell you this. There's something else about you that may also be European, but think it's just your special quality. You're always ready to watch and learn from what you see. Looking for new things and new ideas. Is that also European?"
"I think it probably is."
"It's rare here. Most Indians think everything they have and everything they do is absolutely perfect, exactly the way it is. They might take something foreign and use it, or copy it but they always have to appear disdainful of anything not Indian."
"You're right. I'm always being told everything here is better." He reached for her. "Sometimes it's even true."
"Won't you let me tell you the rest?" She took his hand and held it. "I also think you have more concern for those around you than most Indians do. You respect the dignity of others, regardless of their station, something you'll seldom see here, particularly among the high castes. And there's a kindness about you too. I feel it when you're with me." She laughed again. "You know, it's a tragic thing about Muslim men. They claim to honor women; they write poems to their beauty; but I don't think they could ever truly love a woman. They believe she's a willful thing whom it's their duty to contain."
She paused, then continued. "But you're so very different. It's hard to comprehend you sometimes. You love your European music, but now I think you're starting to understand and love the music of India. I even heard you're learning the sitar. You're sensitive to all beauty, almost the way Samad is. It makes me feel very comfortable with you. But you're also a lot like Prince Jadar. You're not afraid of risks. You guide your own destiny. Instead of just accepting whatever happens, the way most Indians do." She smiled and traced her fingers down his chest. "That part makes you very exciting."
She hesitated again. "And do you know what I like least about you? It's the feringhi clothes you wear."
He burst into laughter. "Tell me why."
"They're so… undignified. When I first saw you, that night you came to Mukarrab Khan's palace, I couldn't believe you could be anyone of importance. Then the next morning, at the observatory, you looked like a nobleman. Tonight, you're dressed like a feringhi again."
"I like boots and a leather jerkin. When I'm wearing a fancy doublet and hose, then I feel I have to be false, false as the clothes. And when I dress like a Moghul, I always wonder if people think I'm trying to be something I'm not."
"All right." She smiled resignedly. "But perhaps sometime tonight you'll at least take off your leather jerkin. I would enjoy seeing you."
He looked at her in wonderment. "I still don't understand you at all. You once said you thought I was powerful. But you seem to be pretty powerful yourself. Nobody I know could force Mukarrab Khan or Nadir Sharif to do anything. Yet you made the governor divorce you, and then you made the prime minister deceive half of Agra to arrange this. You're so many different things."
"Don't forget. Sometimes I'm also a woman."
She rose and began to slowly draw out the long cinch holding the waist of her wrap. Her halter seemed to trouble her as she tried to loosen it. She laughed at her own awkwardness, and then it too came away. She was left with only her jewels and the long scarf over her hair, which she did not remove. Then she turned to him.
"Do you still remember our last night in Surat?"
"Do you?" He looked at her in the dim lamplight. The line of her body was flawless, with gently rounded breasts, perfect thighs, legs lithe yet strong.
"I remember what I felt when I kissed you."
He laughed and moved to take her in his arms. "But I thought I was the one who kissed you."
"Maybe we should try it once more and decide." With a mischievous look she caught his arms and wrapped herself around him. As he touched her lips, she turned abruptly and the world suddenly seemed to twist crazily around them, sending his head spinning. In shock he opened his mouth to speak and it was flooded with the essence of rose.
The pool beneath the platform had broken their fall. He came up gasping and found her lips.
She tasted of another world. Sweet, fragrant. He enclosed her slowly in his arms, clasping her lean body gently at first; then feeling more and more of her warmth he pressed her to him, both of them still gasping. They seemed to float, weightless, serene in the darkness. Awkwardly he began pulling away his wet jerkin.
"You're just as I imagined." Her hands traveled across his chest, lightly caressing his skin, while the lamp flickered against the paintings on the walls above them. "There's a strength about you, a roughness." She nuzzled his chest with her face. "Tonight will you let me be your poet?"
"Tonight you can be anything you want."
"I want to sing of you-a man I adore-of the desire I feel for you. After we know each other fully, the great longing will be gone. The most intense moment we can ever share will be past. The ache of wanting."
"What you just said reminds me of something John Donne once wrote."
"Who is he?"
"One of our English poets and songwriters. But he had a slightly different idea." He hesitated, then smiled. "To tell the truth, I think I may like his better."
She lifted herself up in the water, rose petals patterned across her body. "Then tell me what he said."
"It's the only poem of his I can still remember, but only the first verse. For some reason I'll never forget it. I sometimes think of it when I think of you. Let me say it in English first and then try to translate. "I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then? But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be; If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee."
She listened to the hard English rhythm and then to his translation, awkward and halting. Then she was silent for a moment, floating her hand across the surface of the pond.
"You know, I also wonder now what I did before I met you. Before I held you."
She slipped her hands about his neck, and as she did he drew her up out of the water and cradled her against him. Then he lifted her, her body still strewn with rose petals, and carried her slowly up the marble stairs to the couch of Akman. He felt her cling to him like no woman ever had, and as he placed her on the bed, she took his face in her hands and kissed him for a long moment. Then he heard her whisper.
"Tonight we will know just each other. And there will be nothing else."
And they gave each to each until there was nothing more to give because each was the other. Together, complete.
He was on the quarterdeck, the whipstaff aching against his hand, the mainsail furled as storm winds lashed the waist of the ship with wave after powerful wave. The ship was the Queen's Hope, his vessel when he sailed for the Levant Company, and the rocks that towered off his starboard bow were Gibraltar. He shouted into the dark for the quartermaster to reef the tops'ls, and he leaned on the whipstaff to bring her about, but neither responded. He had no crew. He was being swept, helpless, toward the empty darkness that lay ahead. Another wave caught him across the face, and somewhere in the dark came a screech, as though the sea had given up some dying Leviathan beast. His seaboots were losing their hold on the quarterdeck, and now the whipstaff had grown sharp talons that cut into his hand. Then a woman's voice, a distant siren calling him. Again the screech and then yet another wave cut across his face.
The water tasted of roses…
He jerked violently awake. On his hand a green parrot was perched, preening itself and ruffling its feathers. And from the pool below Shirin was flinging handfuls of water up over the side of the platform, laughing as she tried to splash his face.
She was floating, naked, below him, her hair streaming out across the surface of the water, tangled among the drifting rose petals. He looked about and saw his own wet clothes, mingled among her silks and jewels. For a moment he felt again the terror of the dream, the rudderless ship impelled by something beyond control, and then he caught the edge of the platform and slipped over the side.
The water was cool against his skin and involuntarily he caught his breath. Then he reached out and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her against him. She turned her face to his, twined her hair around his head, and crushed his lips with her own. Just as suddenly, she threw back her head and laughed with joy. He found himself laughing with her.
"Why don't we both just stay? I don't have to be back in Agra until the wedding. We could have a week." He studied the perfect lines of her face, the dark eyes at once defiant and anxious, and wished he could hold her forever. The Worshipful East India Company be damned.
"But we both have things we must do." She revolved in the flowered water and drew her face above his. She kissed him again, languorously. Then she drew herself out of the water and twisted a wrap around her, covering her breasts. "Both you and I."
"And what's this thing you have to do?"
Her eyes shadowed. "One thing I must try to do is convince Samad he cannot stay here any longer. He has to go south, where Prince Jadar can protect him. But he refuses to listen. And time is growing short now. I truly fear for what may happen to him after the wedding. The Persian Shi'ite mullahs will certainly be powerful enough then to demand he be tried and executed on charges of heresy. For violating some obscure precept of Islamic law. It will be the end for him." She paused. "And for anyone who has helped him."
"Then if he won't leave, at least you should." He lifted himself out of the water and settled beside her on the marble paving. "Why don't you come back to England with me? When the fleet from Bantam makes landfall at Surat, Arangbar will surely have the courage to sign the firman, and then my mission will be finished. It should only be a matter of weeks, regardless of what the Portugals try to do."
She studied the water of the pool with sadness in her eyes and said nothing for a moment as she kicked the surface lightly.
"Neither of us is master of what will happen. Things are going to soon be out of control. For both of us. Things are going to happen that you will not understand."
Hawksworth squinted through the half-light. "What's going to happen?"
"Who can know? But I would not be surprised to see the prince betrayed totally, in one final act that will eventually destroy him. He is too isolated. Too weak. And when that happens we're all doomed. Even you, though I don't think you'll believe that now."
"Why should I? I'm not betting on Prince Jadar. I agree with you. I don't think he has a chance. I'm betting on a firman from Arangbar, and soon."
"You'll never get a firman from the Moghul. And Arangbar will be gone in half a year. The queen has already started appearing at morning darshan and directing his decisions at afternoon durbar. As soon as she has Allaudin under her control, Arangbar will be finished. Mark it. He'll die from too much opium, or from some mysterious poison or accident. He will cease to exist, to matter."
"I don't believe it. He seems pretty well in control."
"If that's what you think, then you are very deceived. He can't live much longer. Everyone knows it. Perhaps even he knows it in his heart. Soon he will give up even the appearance of rule. Then the queen will take full command of the Imperial army, and Prince Jadar will be hunted down like a wild boar."
He studied her, not sure he could reasonable contradict her, and felt his stomach knot. "What will happen to you, if the queen takes over?"
"I don't know. But I do know I love you. I truly do. How sad it makes me that I can't tell you everything." Her eyes darkened and she took his hand. "Please understand I did not know the prince would use you the way he has. But it is for good. Try to believe that."
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated and looked away. "Let me ask you this. What do you think the prince will do after the wedding?"
"I don't know, but I think he'd be very wise to keep clear of Agra. Nobody at court will even talk about him now, at least not openly. Still, I think he might be able to stay alive if he's careful. If he survives the campaign in the Deccan, maybe he can bargain something out of the queen. But I agree with you about one thing. She can finish him any time she wants. I understand she already has de facto control of the Imperial army, in Arangbar's name of course. What can Jadar do? He's outnumbered beyond any reasonable odds. Maybe she'll make him a governor in the south if he doesn't challenge her."
"Do you really believe he'd accept that? Can't you see that's impossible? You've met Prince Jadar. Do you think he'll just give up? That's the one thing he'll never do. He has a son now. The people will support him." She pulled herself next to him. "I feel so isolated and hopeless just thinking about it all. I'm so glad Nadir Sharif brought you here."
He slipped his arm around her. "So am I. Will you tell me now how you managed to make him do it?"
"I still have friends left in Agra." She smiled. "And Nadir Sharif still has a few indiscretions he'd like kept buried. Sometimes he can be persuaded…"
"Did he know Samad was here?"
"If he didn't before, he does now. But he won't say anything. Anyway, it hardly matters any more. The queen probably already knows Samad's here." She sighed. "The worst is still waiting. For him. And for both of us."
He caught a handful of water and splashed it against her thigh. "Then let's not talk about it. Until tomorrow."
The worry in her eyes seemed to dissolve and she laughed. "Do you realize how much you've changed since I first met you? You were as stiff as a Portuguese Jesuit then, before Kali and Kamala got their painted fingernails into you. Kali, the lover of the flesh, and Kamala, the lover of the spirit." She glared momentarily. "Now I must take care, lest you start comparing me with them. Never forget. I'm different. I believe love should be both."
He pulled her away and looked at her face. "I'm amazed by how different you are. I still have no idea what you're really like. What you really think."
"About what?"
"Anything. Everything." He shrugged. "About this even."
"You mean being here with you? Making love with you?"
"That's a perfect place to start."
She smiled and eased back in the water, silently toying for a moment with the rose petals drifting around her. "I think making love with someone is how we share our deepest feelings. Things we can't express any other way. It's how I tell you my love for you." She paused. "The way music or poetry reveal the soul of the one who creates them."
"Are you saying you think lovemaking is like creating music?" He examined her, puzzling.
"They both express what we feel inside."
He lifted up a handful of water and watched it trickle back into the pool. "I've never thought of it quite like that before."
"Why not? It's true. Before you can create music, you have to teach both your body and your heart. It's the same with making love."
"What do you mean?"
She reached and touched his thigh. "When we're very young, lovemaking is mostly just desire. We may think it's more, but it isn't really. Then gradually we learn more of its ways, how to give and receive. But even then we still don't fully understand its deeper significance. We're like a novice who has learned the techniques of the sitar, the way to strike and pull a string to make one note blend into another, but who still doesn't comprehend the spiritual depth of a raga. Its power to move our heart. We still don't understand that its meaning and feeling can only come from within. And love, like a raga, is an expression of reverence and of wonder. Wonder at what we are and can be. So even after all the techniques are mastered, we still must learn to experience this wonder, this sense of our spirit becoming one with the other. Otherwise it's somehow still empty. Like perfect music that has no feeling, no life."
He was silent for a moment, trying to comprehend what she was saying. "If you look at it like that, I suppose you could be right."
"With music, we first have to learn its language, then learn to open our spirit. Lovemaking is just the same."
She nestled her head against his chest, sending her warmth through him. As he held her, he noticed lying alongside the pool the garland of flowers she had worn the night before. He reached and took it and slipped it over her head. Then he kissed her gently, finding he was indeed filled with wonder at the feeling he had for her.
He held her silently for a time, looking at the paintings on the walls of the palace around them. Then he noticed a large straw basket at the entryway.
"What is that?" He pointed.
She rose and looked. "I think it's something Samad had left for us."
She lifted herself out of the water and, holding her wrap against her, brought the basket. It was filled with fruits and melons.
"They're not from Samarkand or Kabul, like you've probably grown accustomed to at the palace in Agra. But I think you'll like them anyway." She squinted across the square, in the direction of the mosque. "I love Samad dearly. He did all of this for me. But he refuses to listen to anything I say." She handed him an apple, then reached and took some grapes. "You know, I think he secretly wants to die a martyr. Like a lover eager to die for his or her beloved. He wants to die for his wild freedom, for what he thinks is beautiful. Perhaps to be remembered as one who never bowed to anyone. I wish I had his strength."
"Where's he now?"
"You won't see him any more. But he's still here. He'll have food sent to us. He loves me like a daughter, and he's happy when I am. And he knows now you make me happy. But you mustn't see him here again, even know that he's here. It would be too dangerous for you. Perhaps someday, if we're all still alive."
He took her face in his hands and held it up to him. "You have as much strength as anyone, including Samad. And I want to get you away from here before your strength makes you do something foolish. I love you more than my own life."
"And I love you. Like I've never loved anyone."
"Not even the Great Moghul? When you were in his zenana?"
She laughed. "You know that was very different. I was scarcely more than a girl then. I didn't know anything."
"You learned a few things somewhere." He remembered the night past, still astonished. The way she had…
"In the zenana you learn everything about lovemaking. But nothing about love." She rose and took his hand. Together they walked to the open portico of the palace. Around them the red pavilions were empty in the early sunshine. The morning was still, save for the cries of the green parrots who scurried across eaves and peered down impassively from weathered red railings and banisters. His gaze followed the wide arches, then turned to her dark shining hair. He reached out and stroked it.
"Tell me more about it. How did you learn Turki?"
"In the zenana. We had to learn it, even though Arangbar speaks perfect Persian." She turned to him. "And how did you learn to understand it?"
"In a Turkish prison." He laughed. "It seems about the same to me. I had to learn it too."
"Will you tell me about it? Why were you in prison?"
"Like you, I had no choice. The Turks took a ship I was commanding, in the Mediterranean."
"Tell me what happened."
He stopped and looked at her. "All right. We'll trade. You tell me all about you and I'll tell you everything about me. We'll leave out nothing. Agreed?" She reached and kissed him. "Will you begin first?"