Part 44 (2/2)
”Nothing's impossible.” He suddenly knew, with an absolute certainty, that he had to make her his own. ”Come with me to Agra. Together . . .”
”Don't say it.” She stopped his lips with her finger. ”Not yet.” She glanced at the papers on the table, then reached for his hand, bringing it to her moist cheek. ”Not yet.”
”You're leaving. So am I. We'll leave together.”
”I can't.” She was slipping from him. He felt it. ”I'll think of you when you're in Agra. And when we're ready, we'll find each other, I promise it.”
Before he knew, she had turned and gathered the bundles. When she reached for the lamp, suddenly her hand stopped.
”Let's leave it.” She looked toward him. ”Still burning.” Then she reached out and brushed his lips with her fingertips one last time. He watched in dismay as she pa.s.sed on through the doorway. In moments she was lost among the shadows of the orchard.
BOOK THREE
THE ROAD
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
East along the Tapti River valley the land was a verdant paradise, a patchwork of mango and pipal groves and freshly turned dark earth. By mid-October the fields of cotton, corn, and sugarcane were in harvest; and in the lowlands paired buffalo strained to turn the crusted mud to readiness for broadcast sowing the grain crops of autumn: millet, wheat, and barley. The monsoon-washed roads had again grown pa.s.sable, and now they were a continual procession, as mile-long caravans of corn-laden bullock carts inched ponderously west toward the s.h.i.+pping port of Surat.
The distance from Surat to Burhanpur was one hundred and fifty _kos_, and in dry weather it could be traversed in just over a fortnight.
Vasant Rao had hired fifty carts to transport the sealed bundles--which he said were lead--to Burhanpur, swelling his entourage of forty Raput hors.e.m.e.n by fifty low-caste drivers and bullock teams. He had also hired five additional carts to carry provisions.
Brian Hawksworth had contracted for his own cart and driver, negotiating a price of twenty rupees for cartage of his belongings all the way from Surat to Agra. He was amused to reflect that the chest containing King James's gifts for the Moghul of India traveled lashed to the bed of a ramshackle, wooden-wheeled cart originally intended for hay.
The caravan had been scheduled to depart early on a Sat.u.r.day morning, but the drivers had suddenly refused to budge until the following day.
Hawksworth had confronted his driver, Nayka, a dark-skinned low-caste man with the spindly limbs of the underfed, and demanded to know why.
Nayka had twisted his head deferentially, riveting his eyes on the ground, and explained in halting Turki.
”Today is Sat.u.r.day, Captain Sahib. Sat.u.r.days and
Tuesdays are sacred to the G.o.ddess Devi, the Divine Mother. Journeys begun on those days always meet disaster. Bandits, tigers, washed-out roads. A Mussalman once made my cousin bring a cart of indigo to Surat from a village down the river on a Tuesday, and a bridge broke under his load. Both of his bullocks were drowned.”
It was mid-afternoon on Sunday when the caravan finally pulled out from the water tank at Surat's Abidjan Gate. By nightfall they had traveled three _kos_, reaching the outskirts of the village of Cossaria. The next day they made twelve _kos_ east-northeast to reach the town of Karod, a strategic fort on the Tapti, dominated by a hilltop castle that garrisoned two hundred Rajput soldiers. The next three days their camp stages had been the towns of Viara, Corka, and the large garrison city of Narayanpur.
On the insistence of Mirza Nuruddin, Hawksworth had carried only a minimal amount of money with him. Instead he had adopted the practice of Indian merchants, leaving a chest of silver in Surat and receiving a letter of credit, which could be debited for cash at major stops along the road to Agra. Moneylenders received negotiable notes against the silver deposit, which would be paid in Surat at 7 percent surcharge, thereby allowing travelers along the bandit-infested roads to carry cheques instead of cash.
Hawksworth found himself annoyed that Vasant Rao never allowed the caravan to stop inside the towns, where traditional Indian guest houses--a stone floor and a roof-- were available free for travelers.
Instead they camped each evening on the outskirts, while a few Rajputs rode in to the town bazaar to buy fresh vegetables, bricks of cow dung for cooking, and betel leaves for the drivers.
The evening they reached Narayanpur, the governor of the garrison, Partab Shah, had paid a surprise visit to their camp, bringing his own troup of _nautch_ women. While the women entertained the Rajputs with an evening of dance and low-priced intimacy, Partab Shah whispered warnings to Hawksworth that the road farther east was no longer safe now that civil rule in the Deccan was teetering. The governor had offered to provide additional troops to escort the English amba.s.sador and his gifts for the Moghul safely through the district. To the governor's--and Hawksworth's--dismay, Vasant Rao had politely declined.
It had been well after midnight when the governor and his aides rose to return to Narayanpur. Vasant Rao had insisted that the women be sent with him. Then he convened the Rajputs and drivers and announced that they would a.s.semble the caravan two hours before sunup the following morning, an hour earlier than usual. They would try to reach and ford the Tapti before nightfall, then veer northeast for Burhanpur.
Hawksworth thought he detected a trace of worry in Vasant Rao's voice for the first time.
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