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.