Thomas Hoover - The Moghul

Then in that cold early dawn appeared the letter, requesting his immediate appearance at the Director's Office of the East India Company, should this coincide with his convenience. He found its tone ominous. Was some merchant planning to have him jailed for his loss of cargo to the Turks? But he'd been sailing for the Levant Company, not the East India Company. He debated with himself all morning, and finally decided to go. And face the mercantile bastards.

The new offices of the Company already seemed embalmed in the smell of lamp oil and sweat, their freshly painted wood timbers masked in dull soot. A stale odor of ink, paper, and arid commerce assailed his senses as he was announced and ushered through the heavy oak door of the Director's suite.

And he was astonished by what awaited. Standing hard by the Director's desk-was Maggie. He'd searched the length of London in vain for her, and here she was. But he almost didn't recognize her. Their two years apart had brought a change beyond anything he could have imagined.

No one would have guessed what she once had been, a dockside girl happiest at the Southwark bear-gardens, or in a goose-down bed. And somehow she had always managed to turn a shilling at both-wagering with a practiced eye on the snarling dogs brought in to bloody the bears, or taking her pleasure only after deftly extracting some loan, to allay an urgent need she inevitably remembered the moment she entered his lodgings.

That morning, however, she reigned like an exotic flower, flourishing amid the mercantile gloom. She was dressed and painted in the very latest upper-class style-her red hair now bleached deep yellow, sprinkled thick with gold dust, and buried under a feathered hat; her crushed-velvet bodice low-necked, cut fashionably just below the nipples, then tied at the neck with a silk lace ruff; her once-ruddy breasts now painted pale, with blue veins penciled in; and her face carefully powdered lead-white, save the red dye on her lips and cheeks and the glued-on beauty patches of stars and half-moons. His dockside girl had become a completely modern lady of fashion. He watched in disbelief as she curtsied to him, awkwardly.

Then he noticed Sir Randolph Spencer, Director of the Company.

"Captain Hawksworth. So you're the man we've heard so much about? Understand you escaped from Tunis under the very nose of the damned Turks." He extended a manicured hand while he braced himself on the silver knob of his cane. Although Spencer's flowing hair was pure white, his face still clung tenuously to youth. His doublet was expensive, and in the new longer waist-length style Hawksworth remembered seeing on young men-about-town. "'Tis indeed a pleasure. Nay, 'tis an honor." The tone was practiced and polite, a transparent attempt at sincerity rendered difficult by Hawksworth's ragged appearance. He had listened to Spencer mutely, suddenly realizing his loss of cargo had been forgotten. He was being congratulated for coming back alive.

"'Twas the wife, Margaret here, set me thinkin' about you. Says you two were lightly acquainted in younger years. Pity I never knew her then myself." Spencer motioned him toward a carved wooden chair facing the desk. "She ask'd to be here today to help me welcome you. Uncommonly winsome lady, what say?"

Hawksworth looked at Maggie's gloating eyes and felt his heart turn. It was obvious enough she'd found her price. At last she had what she'd always really wanted, a rich widower. But why trouble to flaunt it?

He suspected he already knew. She simply couldn't resist.

"Now I pride myself on being a sound judge of humanity, Hawksworth, and I've made sufficient inquiry to know you can work a ship with the best. So I'll come right to it. I suppose 'tis common talk the Company's dispatchin' another voyage down to the Indies this comin' spring. Soon as our new frigate, the Discovery, is out of the yard. And this time our first port of call's to be India." Spencer caught Hawksworth's look, without realizing it was directed past him, at Maggie. "Aye, I know. We all know. The damned Portugals've been there a hundred year, thick as flies on pudding. But by Jesus we've no choice but to try openin' India to English trade."

Spencer had paused and examined Hawksworth skeptically. A process of sizing up seemed underway, of pondering whether this shipless captain with the bloodshot eyes and gold earring was really the man. He looked down and inspected his manicured nails for a long moment, then continued.

"Now what I'm about to tell you mustn't go past this room. But first let me ask you, Is everything I've heard about you true? 'Tis said the dey of Tunis held you there after he took your merchantmen, in hopes you'd teach his damned Turks how to use the English cannon you had on board."

"He's started building sailing bottoms now, thinking he'll replace the galleys his Turkish pirates have used for so long. His shipwrights are some English privateers who've relocated in Tunis to escape prison here. And he was planning to outfit his new sailing ships with my cannon. He claims English cast-iron culverin are the best in the world."

"God damn the Barbary Turks. And the Englishmen who've started helping them." Spencer bristled. "Next thing and they'll be out past Gibraltar, pillaging our shipping right up the Thames. But I understand you revised his plans."

"The Turks don't have any more cannon now than they had two years ago. When I refused to help them, they put me in prison, under guard. But one night I managed to knife two of the guards and slip down to the yard. I worked till dawn and had the guns spiked before anybody realized I was gone."

"And I hear you next stole a single-masted shallop and sail'd the length of the Barbary coast alone, right up to Gibraltar, where you hailed an English merchantman?"

"Didn't seem much point in staying on after that."

"You're the man all right. Now, 'tis said you learn'd the language of the Turks while you were in Tunis. Well, sirrah, answer me now, can you speak it or no?"

"For two years I scarcely heard a word of English. But what's that to do with trade in India? From what I know, you'll need a few merchants who speak Portuguese. And plenty of English…"

"Hear me out, sir. If all I wanted was to anchor a cargo of English goods and pull off some trade for a season, I'd not be needin' a man like you. But let me tell you a thing or so about India. The rulers there now are named Moghuls. They used to be called Mongols, Turkish-Afghans from Turkistan, before they took over India about a hundred years back, and their king, the one they call the Great Moghul, still speaks some Turki, the language of the Central Asian steppes. Now I'm told this Turki bears fair resemblance to the language of the damned Turks in the Mediterranean." Spencer assumed a conspiratorial smile. "I've a plan in mind, but it needs a man who speaks this Great Moghul's language."

Hawksworth suddenly realized Maggie must have somehow convinced Spencer he was the only seaman in England who knew Turkish. It could scarcely be true.

"Now I ask you, Hawksworth, what's the purpose of the East India Company? Well, 'tis to trade wool for pepper and spice, simple as that. To find a market for English commodity, mainly wool. And to ship home with cheap pepper. Now we can buy all the pepper we like down in Java and Sumatra, but they'll not take wool in trade. And if we keep on buying there with gold, there'll never be a farthing's profit in our voyages to the Indies. By the same token, we're sure these Moghuls in North India will take wool. They already buy it from the damned Portugals. But they don't grow pepper." Spencer leaned forward and his look darkened slightly. "The hard fact is the East India Company's not done nearly as well as our subscribers hoped. But now the idea's come along-I hate to admit 'twas George Elkington first thought of it-that we try swappin' wool for the cotton goods they produce in North India, then ship these south and trade for pepper and spice. Indian traders have sold their cotton calicoes in the Spice Islands for years. Do you follow the strategy?"