The Mulberry Empire. Philip Hensher

      ‘And they ride so badly,’ Futteh added, with great finality.

      ‘Like the sack of rice on the back of an old donkey,’ his listeners chorused sagely.

      5.

      The orchard city fell into shade as the afternoon wore on; pale peaches, espaliered against the wall, plums, apricots, pears; beneath the window of the Newab Jubbur Khan where they sat all day, a fine apple tree, just like the trees of Burnes’s childhood. He shut his eyes, and sniffed, and sometimes, through all the smell and noise and clear strange mountain air, there was all his childhood, in the sheltered Montrose garden. Walnuts, cherries, vines, and more wonderful things, pomegranates growing in the streets, and, everywhere, mulberry trees; their fruit piled up in market stalls, lying in the street, and the whole city sucking ceaselessly on fruit. At the door of their wing in the courtyard, a small boy, padded up with scraps of cloth, his legs wrapped up puttee-fashion, his dirty feet bare and hardened in sandals, was sucking on a handful of cherries and mulberries, cracking walnuts between his hard teeth, and every so often running his tongue round his mouth to clean off what juice was staining his face, leaving a fat white clown-smile in a fruit-smeared face. And everywhere the birds; bright chattering magpies, the fat burble of doves, edging at each other in their nervous fighting. Burnes watched them for hours from the window. And the nightingale; he had never known, quite, what the Persians meant when they wrote about the nightingale, but here, it was a sharp lemon tang, cutting through the rich sweetness of the dungy perfumed city, a line of pure song, returning on itself, multiplying, varying, twisting, but always, always, itself. He sat in the evening light, and listened, and found no way to ask the others to be quiet too.

      The day wore on, and at some point towards the end of the afternoon, a procession of dishes began to be carried into the room. The two women of the house, veiled in brick-red cloaks, carried them in. Their veils were raw squares of cloth, dropped over their heads. A coarse lattice was cut in to allow them to see. Burnes seemed to catch the glint of an eye through the loose weave of the eye-slit, and, before he lowered his eyes, wondered for a moment if that meant the woman was looking at him. From their gait, they were both young, and the contours of their bodies were revealed by the rippling red cloth.

      A third woman stood at the door and watched, holding a baby; she too was veiled; even the baby was veiled. She seemed to be supervising the other women. Perhaps a favoured wife. The dishes were set down on the floor without explanation, and, when the entire room was filled with clay dishes, the three women retreated to the door, looked once at the food, and not at the men, and quickly left. And then the Newab Jubbur Khan came in.

      The Newab, whose house this was, seemed to regard them with an almost affectionate air. He made a point of eating with them; he also made a point of coming in after the food, and leaving without excusing himself. The three of them scrambled to their feet.

      ‘You have passed an agreeable day, I hope?’ the Newab said kindly. He was a slight man, his nose a huge beak in his little face; when he walked, it was with an evident consciousness of grandeur which his appearance did not entitle him to. He walked like a man who has once been fat. ‘If you do not object, I would like to eat with you.’

      ‘We would be honoured,’ Burnes said.

      ‘Honoured indeed,’ Gerard said, looking warily at the food. ‘Thrice honoured.’

      The Newab nodded agreeably at Gerard’s meaningless formulation. ‘Sit, sit,’ he said. He rattled off the habitual prayer, lazily looking round, and without taking a breath, fell back from Arabic into Persian. ‘The lamb is particularly fine, from my own flock.’ He gestured at a greasy-looking dish, grey and shining in the sun. Burnes leant forward and scooped up some of the cold stew, knowing perfectly well that the Newab was lying politely, since all the food here had to be ordered up from the bazaar. Gerard just looked green.

      ‘Tell me,’ the Newab asked, after each of the dishes had been commended and accepted, and they were embarked on the task of struggling unsuccessfully with what could be eaten of the Newab’s food. ‘How large a city is London, or Calcutta?’

      ‘They are different cities, Newab, and both large and beautiful,’ Mohan Lal said.

      ‘I see,’ the Newab said. He seemed, still, to be under the impression that Calcutta and London were more or less the same place, or perhaps different names for the same city; an impression they had been trying to correct for some time now. ‘But how big? Is it, for instance, as large as our city?’

      ‘I think it might be even a little larger,’ Burnes said tactfully. ‘How many people, for instance, live in Kabul?’

      The Newab sucked on his teeth, and gazed at the wall, as if calculating. ‘Many, many people, and their numbers grow every day, thanks to the wisdom and kindness of the Amir who rules over them.’

      ‘I see,’ Burnes said, making a routine half-incline of the head at the mention of the Amir.

      ‘London has many hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, and is the richest and most beautiful city in the world,’ Gerard cut in. Burnes looked at him in irritation; what the point of boasting to the Newab about the size of London was, he had no idea. Just an unthinking, involuntary outcrop of Gerard’s personality, as frustrating and impossible to argue with as geology.

      ‘Of course, we have seen very little of Kabul,’ Burnes said. ‘But the reputation of the beauty and splendour of the city has spread far, and we have travelled from India in the hope that we may see for ourselves.’

      ‘How is it that you have seen very little of Kabul?’ the Newab abruptly asked. He seemed genuinely puzzled, proffering a dish of boiled aubergines.

      Burnes was thrown. ‘We have been resting here, at your hospitality,’ he said finally, seeing no way to point out that they were effectively prisoners. At that, as if to make his point, one of the succession of small boys with muskets wandered in. He greeted the Newab elaborately, the English more casually, and sat down in the corner of the room, promptly falling asleep, both hands on the barrel of his gun. ‘At the gracious hospitality of the Newab,’ Burnes said, pointedly. ‘We have been unable to see the famous city of Kabul.’

      ‘Great is the city of Kabul,’ the Newab Jubbur Khan echoed, absently. He took a piece of bread, tearing it in half, and dipped it in some dish of meat; before eating it, he made a vague gesture of invitation towards Gerard, who, with too evident unwillingness, followed his example. ‘Yes, the city is great, and its fame has spread far. The bazaar of the city is the greatest in the world, where the world comes to marvel at the riches and splendour of the empire. The merchants of China and Russia and Engelstan come to the great markets, laden with goods, and leave laden down with more than they brought, such are the marvels of the city. The beauty and splendour of the city is great, and the beauty of the people of the Emperor is famous throughout the world. And such, willing, it will always be. Over the city is the Bala Hissar, the palace of my brother, the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, where my brother rules over his family and his wives and his wealth in wisdom and mercy and goodness, willing. And the palace of my brother is famed throughout the world, and the world comes to express its wonder at its beauty and greatness and the greatness of my brother the Amir.’

      He paused, perhaps considering whether his description of the city would, in the end, be as useful to the English as simply letting them out to look for themselves; perhaps, however, considering what there could possibly be to start praising next in the high stinking city. Not the food, at any rate, Burnes thought unkindly, refusing the offer of another greasy dish.

      ‘The Amir is your brother?’ Mohan Lal said.

      ‘The Amir is the brother, it is said, of every Afghan,’ Burnes said, helping out.

      ‘He is my brother,’ Jubbur Khan said simply. ‘The shade of the same mountain shadowed our birth, and may the same stream refresh his parched tongue.’

      ‘May friendship be forever between warriors,’ Burnes said.

      ‘And he is my brother,’