CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Now we will begin. As my guest, you have first throw of the dice." Mirza Nuruddin fingered the gold and ivory inlay of the wooden dice cup as he passed it to Hawksworth. Then he drew a heavy gurgle of smoke from his hookah, savoring the way it raced his heart for that brief instant before its marvelous calm washed over his nerves. He needed the calm. He knew that any plan, even one as carefully conceived as the one tonight, could fail through the blundering of incompetents. Or betrayal. But tonight, he told himself, tonight you will win the game.
The marble-paved inner court of the Shahbandar's sprawling brick estate house was crowded almost to overflowing: with wealthy Hindu money-lenders, whose mercenary hearts were as black as their robes were white; Muslim port officials in silks and jewels, private riches gleaned at public expense; the turbaned captains of Arab cargo ships anchored at the bar, hard men in varicolored robes who sat sweltering, smoking, and drinking steaming coffee; and a sprinkling of Portuguese in starched doublets, the captains and officers of the three Portuguese trading frigatta now anchored at the bar downriver.
Servants wearing only white loincloths circulated decanters of wine and boxes of rolled betel leaves as an antidote to the stifling air that lingered even now, almost at midnight, from a broiling day. The torchbearers of Mirza Nuruddin's household stood on the balconies continuously dousing a mixture of coconut oil and rose attar onto their huge flambeaux. Behind latticework screens the nautch girls waited in boredom, braiding their hair, smoothing their skintight trousers, inspecting themselves in the ring-mirror on their right thumb, and chewing betel. The dancing would not begin until well after midnight.
As Hawksworth took the dice cup, the sweating crowd fell expectantly silent, and for the first time he noticed the gentle splash of the river below them, through the trees.
He stared for a moment at the lined board lying on the carpet between them, then he wished himself luck and tossed the three dice along its side. They were ivory and rectangular, their four long sides numbered one, two, five, and six with inlaid teakwood dots. He had thrown a one and two sixes.
"A propitious start. You English embrace fortune as a Brahmin his birthright." The Shahbandar turned and smiled toward the Portuguese captains loitering behind him, who watched mutely, scarcely masking their displeasure at being thrown together with the heretic English captain. But an invitation from the Shahbandar was not something a prudent trader declined. "The night will be long, however. This is only your beginning."
Hawksworth passed the cup to the Shahbandar and stared at the board, trying to understand the rules of chaupar, the favorite game of India from the Moghul’s zenana to the lowliest loitering scribe. The board was divided into four quadrants and a central square, using two sets of parallel lines, which formed a large cross in its middle. Each quadrant was divided into three rows, marked with spaces for moving pieces. Two or four could play, and each player had four pieces of colored teak that were placed initially at the back of two of the three spaced rows. After each dice throw, pieces were moved forward one or more spaces in a row until reaching its end, then up the next row, until they reached the square in the center. A piece reaching the center was called rasida, arrived.
Hawksworth remembered that a double six allowed him to move two of his pieces, those standing together, a full twelve spaces ahead. As he moved the pieces forward, groans and oaths in a number of languages sounded through the night air. Betting had been heavy on the Shahbandar, who had challenged both Hawksworth and the senior Portuguese captain to a set of games. Only an adventurous few in the crowd would straddle their wagers and accept the long odds that the English captain would, or could, be so impractical as to defeat the man who must value and apply duty to his goods.
"Did I tell you, Captain Hawksworth, that chaupar was favored by the Great Moghul, Akman?" The Shahbandar rattled the dice in the cup for a long moment. "There's a story, hundreds of years old, that once a ruler of India sent the game of chess, what we call chaturanga in India, to Persia as a challenge to their court. They in return sent chaupar to India." He paused dramatically. "It's a lie invented by a Persian."
He led the explosion of laughter and threw the dice. A servant called the numbers and the laughter died as suddenly as it had come.
"The Merciful Prophet's wives were serpent-tongued Bengalis."
He had thrown three ones.
A terrified servant moved the pieces while Mirza Nuruddin took a betel leaf from a tray and munched it sullenly. The crowd's tension was almost palpable.
Hawksworth took the cup and swirled it again. He absently noted that the moon had emerged from the trees and was now directly overhead. The Shahbandar seemed to notice it as well.