But most of all, Arangbar loved to challenge the Englishman to drinking bouts, as night after night they matched cups in the Diwan-i-Khas until near midnight. As Arangbar and the Englishman drew closer, the Jesuits had grown distraught to near madness. The hard-drinking Englishman bragged of the East India Company and its bold plans for trade, of the old Levant Company and its disputes with Spain over Mediterranean routes, of English privateering in the West Indies. Of everything . . . except when the next voyage would come.
Nadir Sharif had listened closely to their expansive talk all those nights, and he had finally deciphered to his own satisfaction the answer to the question uppermost in Arangbar's mind.
The Englishman is bluffing. England has no fleet. At least no fleet that can ever hope to threaten Portuguese control of the Indian Ocean. There'll be no more voyages, and no more presents, for at least a year. The Englishman is living a fool's dream.
When his European presents are gone, and he's spent what's left of his money buying jewels and gifts for the Moghul, he'll be dropped from court. Arangbar plays him like a puppet, always hinting the firman will be ready tomorrow. But there'll be no firman unless Arangbar can be convinced the English king is powerful enough to protect Indian shipping from Portuguese reprisals at sea. And this the English clearly cannot do. At least not now, not without a fleet. The Englishman is living on borrowed time.
And I'm beginning to think he suspects it himself. He drinks more than a man in his place should. He's always able to stay in control, but just barely. If Arangbar were not always drunk himself, he would have noticed it also.
Nadir Sharif glanced at the silver cylinder and smiled to himself. So His Excellency, Miguel Vaijantes, is worried. Undoubtedly he's demanding I contain the Englishman, isolate him from Arangbar.
It will hardly be necessary. The Englishman is destined to be forgotten soon. How much longer can he hold the Moghul’s attention? A month? Two months? I know his supply of trifles for Arangbar is already half depleted.
But why burden the Viceroy with this insight? Bargain with him. Let him pay enough and I will guarantee with my life that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. The end of the Englishman is no less sure.
Nadir Sharif stroked the pigeon lovingly as he began to unwind the silk binding holding the cylinder, and it reminded him again of the Deccan.
Still no pigeons from Mumtaz. How curious that her one dispatch in the last month, the one brought by the Rajput, was merely to request that small accommodation for the Englishman. Who knows why she asked it? Perhaps it was a joke of the prince's.