"I think he'll make a difference. They all seem terrified of him. We have to try." Hawksworth started for the barge. "You don't have much time left." Shirin had said. "Try to understand what's happening." The porters were loosening the lines on the pegs. The bark was ready to get underway. "Don't assume you know who'll aid you," she had said. "Help may come in a way that surprises you. It can't be known who's helping you." He waded through the mud and pulled himself onto the bark. Then he turned and rolled over onto a bale of cloth. The sky was flawless and empty. "Just trust what feels right," she had said, and for no reason at all she had reached out and touched his lute. "Learn to trust your senses. Most of all"--she had taken his hand and held it longer than she should have--"learn to open yourself." They were underway. The Shahbandar watched from the _maidan_ as the bark of English woolens moved in short spurts toward the steps below him. Oars sparkled in the sunshine, and the faint chant of the rowers bounced, garbled, across the waves. Behind him two short, surly-eyed men held the large umbrella that shaded his face and rotund belly. A circle of guards with poles pushed away traders who shouted begs and bribes for a moment of his time injtheir tent, to inspect their goods please and render them salable commodity with his chapp and an invoice stating their worth, preferably undervalued. The 2 1/2 percent duty was prescribed by the Moghul. The assessed value was not. Mirza Nuruddin ignored them. He was calculating time, not rupees. His latest report was that four weeks more were needed for the Viceroy to outfit the galleons and fireships. But the single-masted frigatta bringing the news from Goa was two weeks in travel. Which means the galleons will be here within three, perhaps two weeks, he told himself. A Portuguese armada of twelve warships. The Englishman's luck has run out. They'll be caught unlading and burned. He fingered the shred of dirty cloth tucked in his waist. It had been sent by Shirin, wrapped with a gift of aga of the rose. Her cryptic note had told him all he had needed to know. When his spies reported no one recently injured among the servants of the Portuguese Jesuits, the search had begun in the horse bazaar. They had found the man the next day. The truth had come quickly when Mirza Nuruddin's name was mentioned. And nothing had been learned. The man had been given the knife by Hindi-speaking servants. Their master's name was never divulged. But they knew well the routine of the Englishman, and the location of the observatory. And now I must tamper with your destiny, English captain. We are all-- you, I, the prince--captives of a world we no longer can fully control.