Ruler of the World

wore a pointed black leather shoe. The other had clearly been lost in the scuffle in the alley.

‘Stand them up,’ Salim ordered. As his guards hauled the two men to their feet, he leaned forward from the saddle to get a better look at the men’s faces. The Jesuit he recognised — he was one of half a dozen priests sent from the Portuguese trading settlement at Goa at Akbar’s request to work with his scholars on translating some of their holy books from Latin into Persian. He was a thin, gangling man with angry red pustules on one side of his face and even though some ten feet separated them Salim could smell the acrid, sweaty stench of him. It was a mystery to him why these foreigners didn’t visit the bathhouses — the hammans. How could they endure to stink like mules?

The other man looked even odder standing up. He had a clean-shaven upper lip but a pointed beard like a billy goat’s. His bulbous, pale-lashed eyes were bright blue and his complexion nearly as red as his hair — or, in the case of the shining, peeling end of his nose, even redder. He began brushing the dust from his garments.

‘What has been going on?’ Salim addressed the Jesuit in Persian, knowing he could probably speak it.

The priest drew himself up. ‘Highness, this man insulted my religion. He called my master the Pope a scarlet whore of Babylon. . he said-’

‘Enough.’ Salim had no idea what the Jesuit was talking about except that there had been a quarrel about religion. ‘Where is he from?’

‘From England. He is a merchant newly arrived in Fatehpur Sikri with some of his devilish companions.’

‘What did you say to make him so angry he unsheathed his weapons?’

‘Only the truth, Highness, that the queen of his country is a bastard whore who will rot in hell as will all his miserable heretic compatriots.’

The merchant was listening to the exchange beneath lowering brows though clearly unable to comprehend a word. Salim knew where England was. A small country on a wind-buffeted, rainwashed island on the fringes of the known world ruled by a queen with hair as red as this man’s. He had even seen a miniature portrait of her brought to the court by a Turkish merchant who knew of Akbar’s love of curiosities. He had sold his father the picture in its oval tortoiseshell frame studded with tiny pearls for a good sum. The queen, wearing a cream-coloured gown standing out stiffly from her body, had looked more like a doll than a woman.

‘Does this merchant speak any Persian?’

‘No, Highness. These English are a crude, uneducated people. They speak nothing but their own simple tongue and all they care about is trade and making money.’

‘Enough. I wish to question him. As you seem to know something of his language, you will translate for me. Make sure you do so accurately.’

The Jesuit nodded glumly.

‘Ask him why he makes war on the emperor’s streets.’

After a brief exchange in what sounded to Salim a terse, guttural tongue, lacking the graceful cadences of Persian, the Jesuit, lip curling with contempt, replied, ‘He claims he wished to avenge the insult against his queen, his country and his religion.’

‘Tell him there will be no brawling on our streets and that he is lucky I do not have him thrown into prison or flogged. But I will be merciful because I can see there was blame on both sides. Tell him also to come to the court. My father will wish to question him about his country, I am sure. As for you, be careful whom you insult in our land. Like this man from England, you too are only a visitor.’

‘I bid you welcome to my ibadat khana, my hall of worship. A monarch’s first duty is to preserve his borders and if possible extend them as I have done and will do again. But I believe that a great ruler should also be intent on extending the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding. He must be ever curious, ever questioning, and through knowledge seek to improve the lot of his people. That is why I have summoned not only the ulama and many Muslim scholars here but also the representatives of other faiths. Together we will debate questions of religion, and by exploring what is true and what is false and what is common to us all seek to shed a new light on its real meaning.’

Salim, standing towards the back of the vast hall, had seldom seen his father look more magnificent. Akbar was dressed in a bright green brocade tunic and trousers, with ropes of emeralds round his neck and on his head a turban of cloth of gold glittering with diamonds. A golden candelabra, tall as a man, stood on each side of his throne, which was positioned on a high dais approached by a flight of marble stairs. The dais itself was placed towards the back of a great sandstone platform on which were grouped the assembled clerics. The overall effect was as if his father were seated on the summit of a mountain and the men beneath him were the trees clothing its slopes.

The mullahs of the ulama were dressed in black — stout Shaikh Ahmad was in the front rank while Abul Fazl’s father, Shaikh Mubarak, was standing a little to one side of the main group. The Jesuits were in their usual coarse dark brown robes, cords knotted round their waists and wooden crosses hanging from their necks. Salim could see among them Father Francisco Henriquez and his companion Father Antonio Monserrate who, when they had originally come to the court nearly five years ago, had been the first Christians he had ever encountered.

There were also five Hindu priests, calm-faced men wearing only white loincloths and a long loop of cotton thread round their left shoulders and passing beneath their right arms. Near them stood holy men whom Salim knew to be Jains and by their side fire-venerating Zoroastrians who had come to Hindustan long ago from Persia and laid their dead on the tops of ‘towers of silence’ to be picked clean by birds until their bones shone white. Salim recognised the tall, thin old man with a white beard and lively bright eyes standing behind the Zoroastrians as a Jew from Kashan in Persia — a scholar who had recently come to Akbar’s court and found employment in his library.

On the floor of the ibadat khana — because he was not himself a man of God — was the red-haired English merchant Salim had encountered three months ago and whose name — it still sounded strange to him — was John Newberry. By his side were his two equally oddly dressed companions. The three Englishmen had taken lodgings in the town while they awaited a reply from his father to a petition they claimed to have brought from their queen seeking permission to trade. Just as Salim had anticipated, Akbar was keenly interested in what the strangers could tell him of their faraway world and of their religion which, though also Christian, seemed very different from the faith of the Portuguese Jesuits.

The whole scene made Salim’s heart swell with pride. Though his father had said little to him about why he was constructing the ibadat khana, he had often gone to watch the sandstone building rising up. Having heard his father’s words he now understood its purpose — to help satisfy Akbar’s growing curiosity about religion. His mother had been wrong to deride the Moghuls as barbarians, Salim thought. What higher pursuit could a man follow than to enquire into matters of the mind, the very meaning of existence itself? His father in his glittering robes with his eagle-hilted sword by his side seemed the embodiment not just of physical might but of true greatness. His grandmother had spoken shrewdly when she had told him how skilled Akbar was at creating spectacle and how important was the image he projected to impress upon his audience that he was a man dazzlingly unlike any other. If he were to succeed his father, would he ever be able to reproduce such presence?

‘I have heard that in far-off lands Christian men burn each other alive for reasons of religious belief,’ Akbar was saying. ‘I would like Father Francisco and Father Antonio to explain this to me. Let them speak up so that all can hear.’

The Jesuits exchanged a few words in low voices, then at a nod from his taller companion Father Francisco began to speak. ‘You are correct, Majesty, that in Europe a battle for men’s souls is being fought. A great evil has come amongst us of the Catholic faith — we call it Protestantism. Its followers have strayed from the true path and refuse to acknowledge the authority of our great spiritual leader in Rome, the Pope, who stands between us miserable sinners and God and is God’s representative on earth. The Protestants reject and revile our most sacred beliefs and read heretical translations of our holy Bible in their own tongue, claiming they have no need of an intermediary between themselves and God. In good Catholic countries holy men — we call them the Inquisition — devote their lives to rooting out these heretics and, when they find them, forcing them to recant. Those who refuse are consigned living to the flames as the first taste of the torments of eternal damnation.’

‘What of those who agree to return to your “true path”?’ Akbar asked. His eyes, resting on the Jesuits’ faces, looked very intent.