He turned again toward the river and examined the town of Surat from his new vantage. It was easy to see now why this location had been chosen for the port, for here the river curved and widened, creating a natural, protected harbor. The most conspicuous landmarks visible from across the harbor were three stone villas along the riverfront, all owned by the Shahbandar, and the square stone fort that stood on the downriver side of the harbor, its heavy ordnance trained perpetually on the water. The fort was surrounded by a moat on three sides and on the fourth by the river. Entry could only be gained through a gate on the riverside, or a drawbridge that connected its entrance to the open maidan, the square where traders congregated.
The square had swarmed with merchants and brokers as they passed through, and he had watched as two brokers stood together near its center—one from Ahmedabad, up-country, and the other from Surat—arguing loudly over the price and quality of a pile of indigo. The porters explained that the Surat broker was accusing the other of mixing sand with the indigo to increase its weight, then disguising his deception by also adding enough oil that the indigo would still float on water, the test used to establish purity of the dried extract of the indigo leaf. As the argument grew more vigorous, Hawksworth noticed the men join hands beneath a piece of cloth, where they began negotiating the actual price by means of their fingers, a figure undoubtedly little related to the movement of their tongues.
Now that the high trading season of September-January had begun, Surat's narrow streets were one loud bazaar, swollen to almost two hundred thousand grasping traders, bargaining seamen, hawking merchants. A dozen languages stirred the air as a motley mélange of up-country Indian traders, Arabs, Jains, Parsis, Persians, Jews, Egyptians, Portuguese, and returning Muslim pilgrims—every nationality known to the Indian Ocean—swaggered through the garbage-sodden mud paths called streets.
Hawksworth gazed back at the city and reflected over the curious events of the past three weeks. The English had, inexplicably, been received first with open hostility, and then with suspiciously cordial deference—first by the governor, and afterward by the Shahbandar. Something is very wrong, he told himself. A contest of wills is underway between the Shahbandar, Mirza Nuruddin, and the governor, Mukarrab Khan. And so far, Mukarrab Khan seems to be winning. Or is he?
Six days before, the governor had suddenly reversed his policy of noninterference in port affairs and authorized a license for the English to sell their cargo in Surat and buy Indian goods, something the Shahbandar had found one excuse after another to delay. However, Mukarrab Khan had delivered this license directly to the English, rather than forwarding it to the Shahbandar through normal channels, leaving Brian Hawksworth the unpleasant responsibility of presenting this document to the Shahbandar in person. But the meeting turned out to be nothing like Hawksworth had expected.
"Once more you astound me, Captain." The close, torch-lit chamber of the customs house office had fallen expectantly silent as the Shahbandar drew slowly on his hookah and squinted with his opaque, glassy eyes at the black seal of Mukarrab Khan affixed to the top of the page. Hawksworth had waited for a glimmer of anger at this insulting breach of port protocol—which surely was Mukarrab Khan's reason for insisting the license be delivered by the English Captain-General. But the Shahbandar's eyes never lost their noncommittal squint. Instead he had turned to Hawksworth with a cordial smile. "Your refusal to negotiate seems to have worked remarkable dispatch with His Excellency's officials. I can't recall ever seeing them act this quickly."
Hawksworth had been amazed. How could Mirza Nuruddin possibly know the terms he had demanded of the governor: produce a license for trade within ten days or the two English frigates would weigh anchor and sail; and accept English sovereigns at bullion value rather than the prevailing discount rate of 4 1/2 percent required to circumvent "minting time," the weeks "required" by the Shahbandar's minters to melt down foreign coin and re-mint it as Indian rupees.
No one could have been more surprised than Brian Hawksworth when Mukarrab Khan had immediately conceded the English terms and approved the license—valid for sixty days—to land goods, and to buy and sell. Why had the governor agreed so readily, overriding the Shahbandar's dawdling clerks?
"Naturally you'll need an officer here to schedule the river barks." The Shahbandar's voice was even, but Hawksworth thought he sensed an air of tension suddenly grip the room. "Normally barks are reserved weeks in advance now during the high season, but we can always accommodate friends of Mukarrab Khan."
It was then that Hawksworth had told the Shahbandar he would not be bringing cargo up the river, that instead it would be transported overland from their protected anchorage using bullock carts arranged for by Mukarrab Khan.