Jadar waved his hand in dismissal. "Mere curiosity, nothing more. If I had allowed them to kill you, we could never have had this interesting talk. But you still have many troubles ahead." "We both do." "But I know who my enemies are, Captain. That's the difference." The door had begun to swing slowly inward. "Yes, these are interesting times, Captain. You may find it difficult to stay alive, but somehow I think you'll manage for a while longer." Hawksworth watched nervously as the Rajput guards filed into the room and stationed themselves by the door. "I plan to march south in ten days. You would be wise to leave tomorrow for the north, while the roads are still secure. Vasant Rao has asked to accompany you, and I'm afraid I have no choice but to humor him. I need him here, but he is a man of temperament. I will provide guards for you as far north as the Narbada River. After that he will hire his own horsemen. I'll give him a letter for a raja in Mandu, who can supply whatever he needs." Jadar studied Hawksworth one last time, his eyes calculating. "We both have difficult times ahead, but I think we'll meet again. Time may change a few things for both of us." As Hawksworth passed through the open doorway, he looked back to see the prince leaning easily aginst a stack of bundles, flipping a large silver coin. And suddenly he wanted to leave the fortress of Burhanpur more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. The next morning Vasant Rao and forty horsemen were waiting with Hawksworth's cart. By midday they had left Burhanpur far behind, and were well on the way north. The journey north through Mandu, Ujjain, and Gwalior to Agra normally took six weeks, but when roads were dry it was an easy trip. Two days later five prominent _mansabdars_ in the northern Deccan died painfully in separate ambushes by bandits. Their _jagirs_ were confiscated immediately by Prince Jadar. Ten days from that time he moved south with eighty thousand men and thirty thousand horse. BOOK FOUR AGRA CHAPTER SIXTEEN Nadir Sharif leaned uneasily against the rooftop railing of his sprawling riverside palace, above the second-floor _zenana_, and absently watched his Kabuli pigeons wing past the curve of the Jamuna River, headed toward the Red Fort. They swept over the heavy battlements at the river gate and then veered precisely upward, along the sheer eastern wall of the fort, until they reached the gold minaret atop the Jasmine Tower, the private quarters of Queen Janahara. They circled her tower once, then coalesced into a plumed spear driving directly upward toward the dawn-tinged cloud bank that hovered over Agra from the east.