“SHAHJAHANABAD IS A BASKET of asps,” Jack remarked the next day, as they were all riding through some wooded hills in the southeastern quarter of his domain. “Most of the Mogul’s omerah s go there and become entangled with the intrigues and doings of other omerah s, not to mention diverse courtiers, concubines, eunuchs, Banyans of the sodagar and the katari class, Brahmins and Fakirs of diverse Hindoo sects, spies and intriguers from wild ’stans to the Northwest, the agents of the French, Dutch, and English East India Companies, and anyone else who just happens to be hanging around. Aurangzeb has a great palace there, which he stole from his pa and his brothers. So you see, lads, you’re not the first men to violate the Fourth Commandment in Hindoostan—”
” ‘Remember the Sabbath?’ ” quoth Jimmy, incredulous.
“Beg your pardon, I must’ve meant the Seventh.”
” ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery?’ ” said Jimmy and Danny in unison.
“I can see the Papists have left their mark on you lads—again, my fault.”
“His Royal Highness meant to say the Fifth—honor thy father and mother,” hollered Enoch Root—who, along with Surendranath, had been dropping farther and farther behind them, but who was still within earshot.
Danny made a sort of throat-clearing noise. “We came here to do that specifically—honor our mum, that is. It’s just that in order to do it, we had to settle a score wi’ Dad.”
“Well, now that you’ve settled it,” said Jack, pointing to various large swellings on his face, “shut up, because I’m trying to educate you. Before we embarked on theologickal disputations, I was talking about the Palace of the Great Mogul in Shahjahanabad, outside Delhi. It rises above the flood plain of a river, and on that plain, the Great Mogul stages mock-battles between armies of hundreds of elephants, and as many horse and camel. The expense, for elephant-feed alone, is damnable.”
“Let’s go! I ha’ to see it!” exclaimed Jimmy, all starry-faced.
“Doahn’t be such a shite-for-brayans!” said Danny. “Cahn’t you perceive, he’s tryin’ to payant a picture of Oriental decadence?”
“I can perceive it as clearly as your ugly fayace! But I ha’n’t rode all this friggin’ way to beat up Dad an’ then go hoahm! I’d not be above seein’ a wee sahmple of Oriental decadence afore I leave—assoomin’ that’d be all right wi’ ye, Parson Brown.”
“You’ll see Oriental decadence and then some, if you’ll only shut up—but you won’t see it in my kingdom. Because the point I was leading up to is as follows. Among those omerah s is a fair sprinkling of Christian artillerymen—renegadoes and Vagabond soldiers from the armies of King Looie and the Holy Roman Emperor. Aurangzeb needs ’em, you see, because they’ve mastered the al-jebr, which is a sort of mathematickal sorcery that we had the good sense to steal from the Arabs. And by wielding this al-jebr they can predict where cannonballs will land, which is a useful thing to know in a battle. Consequently, Aurangzeb simply cannot make do without ’em.”
“What has this t’do wi’ you, Dad, who doahn’t know al-jebr from jabber?” said Danny.
“In the clouded and furious imaginings of the Great Mogul, I am just another Frankish sorcerer. Which is to say that I could be reclining on a silken pillow in Shahjahanabad right now while some Hindoo lass played knick-knack on my chakras. But instead I am here!” And at this point Jack was secretly glad that his sons had been interrupting him the whole way, because the timing had worked out just as in some reasonably well-produced theatrical production: He spurred his donkey forward to the bare top of a hill and swept out a vast arc with his arm. “Look well and carefully upon these domains, my sons—for one day, they will not be yours!”
“Fook it in that case—we’ve already seen ’em,” said Jimmy. “Which way to Shahjahanabad?”
“As you can see, my jagir resembles one of those large earthenware trays in which we make saltpeter. It has a flat hard bottom caked with salty mud, in which what little grows is immediately eaten. The sloped sides of the tray, then, are these ranges of hills that surround it on all sides—save in one place, down below us here, which—in this similitude—is the spout of the tray. It is a stretch of marshes, a sort of Reptile Paradise, that leads eventually to the Bay of Bengal.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Dad, but your royal highness’s rayan lasts another—what—four months?”
“One hundred sixteen days and counting.”