After a few minutes’ search Jack found his partner seated between the two rows of trees that lined the Maidan Shah. Coincidentally, Padraig had chosen a spot along the south side of the square, beneath one of the jutting balconies of the Caravanserai. Or perhaps it was no coincidence. This was one of the more beautiful buildings in the city. It attracted the wealthy men who made Ahmadabad work, just as the Damplatz did in Amsterdam. Neither its beauty nor its wealth meant much to Jack and Padraig in their current estate. But when they loitered here they could watch caravans coming in from Lahore, Kabul, Kandahar, Agra, and places even farther distant: Chinamen who had brought their silks down from Kashgar over the wastes of Leh, and Armenians who had sallied far to the east from their ghetto in Isfahan, and Turkomans from Bokhara, looking like poorer and shorter versions of the mighty Turks who held sway over Algiers. The Caravanserai reminded them, in other words, that it was possible, at least in theory, to escape “The Thorn Bed” (as Jahangir had referred to Ahmadabad in his Memoirs).
Padraig was sitting crosslegged on a snatch of rug (or, to be precise, the coarse weavings that rugs came wrapped in). He had a captured mouse, a rock, and a bowl. When he saw an approaching pedestrian who looked like a Brahmin, he would pin the mouse down on the ground and then raise the rock as if he intended to smash it. Of course he never actually did smash the mouse, and neither did Jack, when Jack took his turn. If they smashed the mouse they would not get money from the Brahmin, and they would have to spend valuable time searching for a replacement mouse. But by assiduously threatening to smash the mouse all day long, they could collect a few paisas in ransom money.
“We’ve been presented—assuming I am reading the signs correctly—with an opportunity to get ourselves killed for money,” Jack announced.
Padraig looked up alertly.
A bloody ox femur fell out of the sky and smashed into the pavement, where it shattered. Two bearded vultures plunged down after it and began to squabble over the marrow.
“Here, or somewhere else?” Padraig inquired, watching the vultures coolly.
“Somewhere else.”
Padraig let the mouse run away.
THE CARAVANSERAI SPRAWLED along the southern side of the Maidan Shah, and had many balconies and lodges, all surrounded by delicately carved stone screens, but you got into it through an octagonal porch that was topped with an onion-dome. Four sides of the porch were open to the street and four were archways giving entry to the building itself, or to the yard in the middle, where queues of horses and camels were assembled or dispersed, and loaded or unloaded. It was in that yard that they found the palanquin of Surendranath. The Banyan himself was negotiating with a one-eyed Pathan for a couple of horses, and when he saw Jack’s and Padraig’s condition he decided to acquire some clothing for them, too. This turned out to be long tunics over loose breeches, and turbans to protect their heads.
“Now that we are out of the bug-feeding business we shall have to let our hair grow back,” Jack mused as they rode out of town along the Kathiawar Road, which is to say that they were going a little south of west.
“I could have gotten you European clothes with a little effort, but I did not want to spend any longer than was absolutely necessary in the Place of the Simoom,” hollered Surendranath, clutching the balusters of his palanquin as it was slugged by another wind-blast. Leaves of exotic trees, curled and spiked like the shells of sea-creatures, whipped past their heads and cartwheeled madly down the road. Jack and Padraig, on horses, were flanking Surendranath’s palanquin, and three of the Banyan’s aides were following behind on foot, leading a couple of asses laden with baggage.
“With our backs to the wind it is not so bad,” said Padraig; but only because he prided himself on making the best of bad situations. Indeed, the street to the Kathiawar Gate was lined with much that would have been scenic, if not for the dust in their eyes: vast gardens of wealthy Banyans and Moguls, mosques, pagodas, reservoirs, and wells.
“With our backs to Ahmadabad it will be better,” said Surendranath. “Kathiawar is reasonably settled, and we can make do with the usual Charan escort. But when we begin the journey to the northeast, you will have to dress as Europeans, to cow the Marathas.”
“Northeast…so our destination is Shahjahanabad?” Jack inquired.
“He would prefer to say Delhi,” Padraig put in, after Surendranath failed to answer.
“Of course, because he is a Hindoo, and Shahjahanabad is the Mogul name,” Jack said. “Leave it to an Irishman.”
“The English have given our cities any number of inventive names,” Padraig allowed.
“The monsoon season has brought much valuable cargo from the West this year, but all of it lies piled up in warehouses in Surat,” said Surendranath. “Shambhaji and his rebels have made the passage to Delhi a dangerous one. Now I have heard, from mariners who have sailed far to the south, that there are strange birds in those regions who live on ice floes, and that when these birds become hungry they will congregate on the edge of the floe, desiring the small fish that swim in the water below, but fearing the ravenous predators that lurk in that same water. The hunters are subtle, so there is no way for these birds to know whether one is lying in wait for them. Instead they wait for one bird, who might be exceptionally bold, or exceptionally stupid, to jump in alone. If that bird returns with a belly full of fish, they all jump in. If that bird never comes back, they wait.”
“The similitude is clear,” Jack said. “The merchants of Surat are like the birds on the ice floe, waiting to see who will be bold, or stupid, enough to attempt the passage to Delhi first.”
“That merchant will reap incomparably higher profits than the others,” Surendranath said encouragingly.
“Assuming his caravan actually makes it to Delhi, that is,” said Padraig.