Damn Kerridge. Why was he steering so close to shore? Didn't he realize there'd be a current?
Or was it the pilot?
Were we steered into this disaster on the orders of our new friend Mirza Nuruddin? Has he been playing false with us all along, only claiming to help us stay clear of the Portugals? By the looks of the traders on the maidan this morning I can tell they all think we were played for fools.
He tried to remember all the Shahbandar had said the night before, particularly the remarks he had not understood, but now the evening seemed swallowed in a fog of brandy.
But the game, he finally realized, had been more than a game.
"The voyage will be lucky to break even now." George Elkington slid from the back of the sweating porter and collapsed heavily on the stone steps. "The Resolve was old, but 'twill take forty thousand pound to replace her."
"What do you plan to do?" Hawksworth eyed Kerridge as he mounted the steps, his doublet unrecognizable under the smeared mud, and decided to ignore him.
"Not a damn'd thing we can do now, save lade the last of the cotton and some indigo on the Discovery and weigh anchor. And day after tomorrow's not too soon, by my thinkin'." Elkington examined Hawksworth and silently cursed him. He still had not swallowed his disbelief when Hawksworth had announced, only three days before, that he planned to leave the ships and travel to Agra with a letter from King James.
"The Shahbandar has asked to meet with you." Hawksworth motioned to Elkington as the last seaman climbed over the side of the longboat and onto the back of a waiting porter. "We may as well go in."
A crowd of the curious swarmed about them as they made their way across the maidan and through the customs house. Mirza Nuruddin was waiting on his bolster.