He tried to focus his mind on the governor, on a figure he sculpted in his imagination. A fat, repugnant, pompous bureaucrat. But the figure slowly began to transform, and in time it became the Turk who had imprisoned him in Tunis, with a braided fez and a jeweled dagger at his waist. The fat Turk was not listening, he was issuing a decree. You will stay. Only then will I have what I want. What I must have. Next a veiled woman entered the room, and her eyes were like Maggie's. She seized his hand and guided him toward the women's apartments, past the frowning guards, who raised large scimitars in interdiction until she waved them aside. Then she led him to the center of a brilliantly lighted room, until they stood before a large stone pillar, a pillar like the one in the porters' lodge except it was immense, taller than his head. You belong to me now, her eyes seemed to say, and she began to bind him to the pillar with silken cords. He struggled to free himself, but the grasp on his wrists only became stronger. In panic he struck out and yelled through the haze of incense.
"I'm only trying to wake you, Captain." A voice cut through the nightmare. "His Eminence, the Shahbandar, has requested that I attend your wound."
Hawksworth startled awake and was reaching for his sword before he saw the swarthy little man, incongruous in a white swath of a skirt and a Portuguese doublet, nervously shaking his arm. The man pulled back in momentary surprise, then dropped his cloth medicine bag on the floor and began to carefully fold a large red umbrella. Hawksworth noted he wore no shoes on his dusty feet.
"Allow me to introduce myself." He bowed ceremoniously. "My name is Mukarjee. It is my honor to attend the celebrated new _feringhi_." His Turki was halting and strongly accented.
He knelt and deftly cut away the wrapping on Hawksworth's leg. "And who applied this?" With transparent disdain he began uncoiling the muddy bandage. "The Christian _topiwallahs _constantly astound me. Even though my daughter is married to one." One eyebrow twitched nervously as he worked.
Hawksworth stared at him through a groggy haze, marveling at the dexterity of his chestnut-brown hands. Then he glanced nervously at the vials of colored liquid and jars of paste the man was methodically extracting from his cloth bag.