Thomas Hoover - The Moghul

He looked about the glistening walls once more, then reluctantly turned and walked out onto the balcony again.

"The peace I feel here overwhelms me sometimes. It quiets all the unrest in my soul. Perhaps I'm a fool to ever think of Agra. But Agra is my destiny. The Hindus would say it's my dharma."

He stopped to watch as Mumtaz and her women emerged from their quarters and gathered around the fountain in the garden below. The evening air was flooded with the women's rose attar and musk perfume. He inhaled deeply, then turned to Hawksworth.

"By the way, I've had a small farewell gift made for you, Captain. It's there beside you." He pointed to the sitar by the railing. "I understand you've started learning to play it."

Hawksworth turned, startled, and picked up the instrument. Its workmanship was fine art, with ivory inlays along both sides of the body and a neck carved as the head of a swan. He found himself stunned. "I've only just begun to learn, Highness. This is much finer than I deserve. It's worthy of an Ustad."

"Then perhaps it will inspire you to become a Master yourself someday." He laughed. "And now I want to hear how you play it. The Hindus believe the sitar is a window to the soul. That the sound of the first note tells everything there is to know about a man. I want to see if you've actually understood anything since you've been here. What raga have you been studying?"

"Malkauns."

"An ambitious choice. I seem to remember that's a devotional raga. For late evening. But the sun's almost down. We'll pretend it's the moon, just rising. Let's go inside, where you can sit."

Hawksworth carried the sitar and followed numbly as Jadar led the way back into the tiny marble room. The apprehension he had momentarily felt on the balcony seemed to dissolve among the bouquets of precious stones in the inlaid walls. He slipped off his shoes and seated himself in the middle of the room. Then he quickly tested the tuning on the strings, both the upper and the lower. He could already tell the sound it produced was magnificent, with the resonance of an organ. Jadar and Shirin seated themselves opposite, speaking Persian in low voices as they watched him cradle the round body of the sitar in the curved instep of his left foot. Then they both fell expectantly silent.

He knew what they were waiting to hear. For the raga Malkauns, a master would sound the first note powerfully, yet with a sense of great subtlety-slipping his finger quickly down the string and into the note just as it was struck, then instantly pulling the string across the fret, almost in the same motion, again raising the pitch and giving the feeling the note had merely been tasted, dipped down into and out again as it quavered into existence. But it was much more than mere technique. That was the easiest part. It was a sense. A feeling. It came not from the hand, but from the heart. The note must be felt, not merely sounded. When done with lightness, life seemed to be created, a prahna in the music that the player and listener shared as one. But if the player's heart was false, regardless of how skilled he might be, then his music was hollow and dead.

He breathed deeply, trying to clear his mind, then slipped the wire plectrum over his finger and gently stroked the lower sympathetic strings once, twice, to establish the mood. The cool air was crisp and flower-scented, and the sound rose gently upward toward the marble cupola above them. As he listened he found himself looking at Shirin and Jadar, their dark eyes, delicate faces. Then his eyes moved beyond them, to the garden of inlaid stones in the marble walls. And for a moment he felt something he had never felt before. This was the India he had, until that moment, only been in. But here, now, he was finally part of it. He took another deep breath and struck.

The first note was perfect, encompassing. He felt it. He knew it. He sensed his hand merge with the music, the music with his own life. Shirin's eyes seemed to melt, and Jadar immediately swung his head from side to side in approval. Then he began to alap, the virtuoso first section of the raga, meant to be played solo and without drum accompaniment. He felt the music slowly growing around him as he found and explored note after note of the raga's structure. He found himself wanting to taste and feel each note to its essence, reluctant to move on to the next. But each time he was beckoned forward, until at last nothing but the music mattered. He played on and on, the intensity of the alap growing organically, almost of its own self, until it burst to completion, like a flower that had gloriously escaped the entrapment of its bud.

When the final note died into silence, Shirin slowly rose and slipped her arms around his neck. Jadar sat motionless for a moment longer, then reached out and put his hand on the strings of the sitar.

"You have earned it, Captain. I've heard what I'd hoped to hear. Your music tells me all I want to know about you." He rose and led them back out onto the balcony. "I know now you can understand why I also want to create something of beauty someday. A Mahal that will last as long as this music. If we cannot taste love and beauty, our hearts are dead." He smiled at Hawksworth. "There is love in your music, Captain. Your heart is as it should be. And in the end, nothing else really matters. Nothing else."

He turned and stared pensively into the twilight. "My Mahal will have it too. Because it is in my own heart."

Jadar stopped abruptly and gazed toward the darkening shore. Through the dimming light a boat could be seen approaching, rowed furiously by lines of red-cloaked oarsmen. Sitting in the center on a gilded platform was Maharana Karan Singh, wearing full battle dress. His powerful bow hung loosely from his leather quiver and his rhino-hide shield rested at his side. Jadar studied the boat for a moment and concern gathered in his eyes.

"He would never come here unannounced. Merciful Allah, has the Imperial army moved against us already? How can it be so soon? My preparations have scarcely begun."

Jadar watched as the maharana leaped from the boat almost before it touched the marble dock. The women around Mumtaz fled the courtyard, and now the eunuchs pressed forward to bow and welcome him. He brushed them aside as he moved quickly through the garden and into the lower arcade of the palace. Jadar stood listening expectantly to the quick pad of his footsteps on the stone stairs, then walked inside to greet him.

"Nimaste, my friend. You've already missed the best part of the sunset, but I'll have more sharbat sent."

The maharana glanced in surprise at Hawksworth and Shirin for a second, then turned and bowed quickly to Jadar.

"The news is very bad, Highness."

"Then we'll sweeten it with sharbat."

"There is no time, Highness."

"There's always time for sharbat. This has been a special afternoon for me."

"Highness, I came to tell you Arangbar is dead. The Moghul of India joined the immortals two days ago."

Jadar examined him a moment almost as though not comprehending. Then he turned and stared out through the balcony doorway, past Hawksworth and Shirin. "I would not have wished it. I sincerely would not have wished it." He turned back to Karan Singh. "How did he die? Did Janahara murder my father, as she's killed so many others?"

"No, Highness. It almost seems as though he deemed it his time to die. Two weeks ago he was hunting and saw a beater stumble and fall over a ledge, killing himself. His Majesty grew despondent, saying he had caused the man's death. Next he began to declare it an omen of his own death. He refused food and drink. Finally even the physicians despaired. He died in his bed. Word was given out that he was still hunting, so the news was carefully kept from all of Agra until the very end."