The Moghul

by Thomas Hoover

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The light of a single flame tip burned through the haze of his vision, and then he heard words around him, in a terse language as ancient as time. He tried to move, and an aching soreness shot through his shoulders and into his groin. His head seemed afire.

  I must be dead. Why is there still pain?

  He forced his swollen eyelids wider, and a room slowly began to take form. It was a cell, with heavy bamboo slats over the windows and an ancient wooden latch on the door. The floor was earth and the walls gray mud with occasional inscriptions in red. Next to him was a silhouette, the outline of a man squatting before an oil lamp and slowly repeating a sharp, toneless verse. He puzzled at the words as he studied the figure.

  It's the language of the priest at the wedding. It must be Sanskrit. But who . . . ?

  He pulled himself upward on an elbow and turned toward the figure, which seemed to flicker in the undulating shadows. Then he recognized the profile of Vasant Rao. The verses stopped abruptly and the Rajput turned to examine him.

  "So you're not dead? That could be a mistake you'll regret." Vasant Rao's face sagged and his once-haughty moustache was an unkempt tangle. He stared at Hawks­worth a moment more, then turned back to the lamp. The Sanskrit verses resumed.

  "Where the hell are we?"

  Vasant Rao paused, and then slowly revolved toward Hawksworth.

  "In the fortress village of Bhandu, ten kos northwest of the town of Chopda. It's the mountain stronghold of the Chandella dynasty of Rajputs."

  "And who the hell are they?"

  "They claim direct descent from the ancient solar race of Rajputs described in the Puranas. Who knows, but that's what they believe. What we all do know is they've defended these hills for all of time."

  "Did they take the caravan?"

  A bolt of humiliation and pain swept through Vasant Rao's eyes for a moment and then his reserve returned. "Yes, it was taken."

  "So your mighty 'solar race' is really a breed of God- cursed common bandits."

  "Bandits, they are. They always have been. Common, no. They're professionals, honorable men of high caste."

  "High-caste thieves. Like some of the merchants I've met." Hawksworth paused and tried to find his tongue. His mouth was like cotton. "How long've we been here?"

  "This is the morning of our second day. We arrived yesterday, after traveling all night."

  "I feel like I've been keelhauled for a week." Hawksworth gingerly touched his forehead and there was a pulse of pain.

  Vasant Rao listened with a puzzled expression. "You were tied over your horse. Some of the clan wanted to kill you and leave you there, but then they decided that would give you too much honor."

  "What the hell are you talking about? I remember I gave them a fight."

  "You used a pistol. You killed a man, the head of this dynasty, with a pistol."

  The words seemed to cut through the shadows of the room. The pain returned and ached through Hawksworth's body.

  More deaths. The two men who died on the Discovery. I saw Nayka die with an arrow in his throat. And how many of the Rajput guards died? Why am I always in the middle of fighting and death?

  "The bastards killed my driver."

  "The driver was nothing. A low caste." He shrugged it away. "You are an important feringhi. You would not have been harmed. You should never have drawn a pistol. And then you allowed yourself to be captured. It was an act beneath honor. The women spat on you and your horse when you were brought through the streets. I have no doubt they'll kill us both now."

  "Who's left alive?"

  "No one. My men died like Rajputs." A trace of pride flashed through his eyes before they dimmed again with sadness. "When they knew they could not win, that they had failed the prince, they vowed to die fighting. And all did."

  "But you're still alive."

  The words seemed almost like a knife in the Rajput's heart.

  "They would not kill me. Or let me die honorably." He paused and stared at Hawksworth. "There was a reason, but it doesn't concern you."

  "So all the men died? But why did they kill the drivers?"

  "The drivers weren't killed." Vasant Rao looked sur­prised. "I never said that."

  I keep forgetting, Hawksworth told himself, that only high castes count as men in this God-forsaken land.

  "This whole damned country is mad." The absurdity overwhelmed him. "Low castes, your own people, handled like slaves, and high castes who kill each other in the name of honor. A pox on Rajputs and their fornicating honor."

  "Honor is very important. Without honor what is left? We may as well be without caste. The warrior caste lives by a code set down in the Laws of Manu many thousands of years ago." He saw Hawksworth's impatience and smiled sadly. "Do you understand what's meant by dharma?”

  "It sounds like another damned Hindu invention. An­other excuse to take life."

  "Dharma is something, Captain Hawksworth, without which life no longer matters. No Christian, or Muslim, has ever been able to understand dharma, since it is the order that defines our castes—and those born outside India are doomed to live forever without a caste. Dharma defines who we are and what we must do if we are to maintain our caste. Warfare is the dharma of the Kshatriya, the warrior caste."

  "And I say a pox on caste. What's so honorable about Rajputs slaughtering each other?"

  "Warriors are bound by their dharma to join in battle against other warriors. A warrior who fails in his duty sins against the dharma of his caste." Vasant Rao paused. "But why am I bothering to tell you this? I sound like Krishna, lecturing Arjuna on his duty as a warrior."

  "Who's Krishna? Another Rajput?"

  "He's a god, Captain Hawksworth, sacred to all Rajputs. He teaches us that a warrior must always honor his dharma."

  Vasant Rao's eyes seemed to burn through the shadows of the cell. From outside Hawksworth heard the distant chantings of some village ceremony.

  "If you'll listen, feringhi captain, I'll tell you something about a warrior's dharma. There's a legend, many thousands of years old, of a great battle joined between two branches of a powerful dynasty in ancient India. Two kings were brothers, and they shared a kingdom, but their sons could not live in peace. One branch wished to destroy the other. Eventually a battle was joined, a battle to the death. As they waited on the field for the sound of the conch shell, to summon the forces, the leader of those sons who had been wronged suddenly declared that he could not bring himself to kill his own kinsmen. But the god Krishna, who was charioteer for this son, reminded him he must follow his dharma. That there is no greater good for a warrior than to join battle for what is right. It's wrong only if he is attached to the fruits of battle, if he does it for gain. It's told in the Bhagavad-Gita, a Sanskrit scripture sacred to all warriors. I was reciting a verse from Chapter Twelve when you woke."

  "What did this god Krishna say?"

  "He declared that all who live must die, and all who die will be reborn. The spirit within us all, the atman, cannot be destroyed. It travels through us on its journey from birth to rebirth. But it's not correct to say merely that it exists. It is existence. It is the only reality. It is present in everything because it is everything. Therefore there's no need to mourn for death. There is no death. The body is merely an appearance, by which the atman reveals itself. The body is only its guardian. But a warrior who turns away from the duty of his caste sins against his honor and his dharma. Krishna warned that this loss of honor could one day lead to the mixture of castes, and then the dharma of the universe, its necessary order, would be destroyed. It's not wrong for a Rajput to kill a worthy foe, Captain Hawksworth, it's his duty. Just as it's also his duty to die a worthy death."

  "Why all this killing in the name of 'honor' and 'duty"?"

  "Non-Hindus always want to know 'why.' To 'under­stand.' You always seem to believe that words somehow contain all truth. But dharma simply is. It is the air we breathe, the changeless order around us. We're part of it. Does the earth a
sk why the monsoons come? Does the seed ask why the sun shines each day? No. It's dharma. The dharma of the seed is to bear fruit. The dharma of the warrior caste is to do battle. Only feringhi, who live outside our dharma, ask 'why.' Truth is not something you 'understand.' It's something you're part of. It's something you feel with your being. And when you try to catch it with words, it's gone. Can the eagle tell you how he flies, Captain Hawksworth, or 'why"? If he could, he would no longer be an eagle. This is the great wisdom of India. We've learned it's wasted on feringhi, Captain, as I fear it's now wasted on you."

  The talk left Hawksworth feeling strangely insecure, his mind wrestling with ideas that defied rationality.

  "I know there are things you understand with your gut, not with your head."

  "Then there may be hope for you, Captain Hawksworth. Now we will see if you can die like a Rajput. If you can, perhaps you will be reborn one of us."

  "Then I might even learn to be a bandit."

  "All Rajputs are not the same, Captain. There are many tribes, descended from different dynasties. Each has its own tradition and genealogy. I'm from the north. From the races descended from the moon. This tribe claims descent from the solar dynasty, which also began in the north. I think their genealogy goes back to the god Indra, who they claim brought them into being with the aid of the sun."

  Vasant Rao turned and continued reciting in Sanskrit. His face again became a mask.

  Hawksworth rubbed his head in confusion and suddenly felt a hard lump where the club had dropped. The fear began to well up in his stomach as he remembered the stony-faced riders who had surrounded him in the river. But he pushed aside thoughts of death.

  Dharma be damned. What did he mean, they're members of a clan descended from the "solar dynasty"? They're killers, looking for an excuse to plunder.

  I'm not planning to die like a Rajput just yet. Or be reborn as one. Life is too sweet just as it is. I'm beginning to feel alive here, for the first time ever. Shirin is free. I've got a feeling I'll be seeing her again. Whatever happens, I don't care to die in this piss hole, with empty talk about honor. Think.

  He remembered the river again, and quickly felt in his boot. The other pistol was still there.

  We'll find a way to get out. Somehow. We may just lose a few days' time, that's all. We made good time so far. Six days. We left on Sunday, and we've been here two days. So today is probably Monday.

  He suddenly froze.

  "Where are the carts?"

  "At the south end of the village. Where they have the chans, the cattle sheds. The drivers are there too."

  "Is my chest there?"

  "No. It's right there. Behind you." Vasant Rao pointed into the dark. "I told them it belonged to the Moghul, and they brought it here. I guess the Moghul still counts for something here. Maybe they're superstitious about him."

  Hawksworth pulled himself up and reached behind him. The chest was there. He fingered the cool metal of the lock and his mind began to clear even more. Quickly he began to search his jerkin for the key. Its pockets were empty.

  Of course. If I was tied over a horse it . . .

  Then he remembered. For safety he had transferred it to the pocket of his breeches the second day out. He felt down his leg, fighting the ache in his arm.

  Miraculously the key was still there.

  He tried to hold his excitement as he twisted it into the lock on the chest. Once, twice, and it clicked.

  He quickly checked the contents. Lute on top. Letter, still wrapped. Clothes. Then he felt deeper and touched the metal. Slowly he drew it out, holding his breath. It was still intact.

  The light from the lamp glanced off the burnished brass of the Persian astrolabe from the observatory. It had been Mukarrab Khan's parting gift.

  He carried it to the slatted window and carefully twisted each slat until the sun began to stream through.

  Thank God it's late in the year, when the sun's already lower at midday.

  He took a quick reading of the sun's elevation. It had not yet reached its zenith. He made a mental note of the reading and began to wait. Five minutes passed—they seemed hours—and he checked the elevation again. The sun was still climbing, but he knew it would soon reach its highest point.

  Vasant Rao continued to chant verses from the Bhagavad Gita in terse, toneless Sanskrit.

  He probably thinks I'm praying too, Hawksworth smiled to himself.

  The reading increased, then stayed the same, then began to decrease. The sun had passed its zenith, and he had the exact reading of its elevation.

  He mentally recorded the reading, then began to rummage in the bottom of the chest for the seaman's book he always carried with him.

  We left Surat on October twenty-fourth. So October twenty-fifth was Karod, the twenty-sixth was Viara, the twenty-seventh was Corka, the twenty-eighth was Narayan­pur, the twenty-ninth was the river. Today has to be October thirty-first.

  The book was there, its pages still musty from the moist air at sea. He reached the page he wanted and ran his finger down a column of figures until he reached the one he had read off the astrolabe.

  From the reading the latitude here is 21 degrees and 20 minutes north.

  Then he began to search the chest for a sheaf of papers and finally his fingers closed around them, buried beneath his spare jerkin. He squinted in the half light as he went through the pages, the handwriting hurried from hasty work in the observatory. Finally he found what he wanted. He had copied it directly from the old Samarkand astronomer's calculations. The numerals were as bold as the day he had written them. The latitude was there, and the date.

  With a tight smile that pained his aching face he carefully wrapped the astrolabe and returned it to the bottom of the chest, together with the books. He snapped the lock in place just as the door of the cell swung open.

  He looked up to see the face of the man who had swung the club.

  Good Jesus, I thought he was dead. And he looks even younger. . . .

  Then Hawksworth realized it had to be his son. But the heavy brow, the dark beard, the narrow eyes, were all the same, almost as though his father's blood had flowed directly into his veins. He wore no helmet or breastplate now, only a simple robe, entirely white.

  The man spoke curtly to Vasant Rao in a language Hawksworth did not understand.

  "He has ordered us to come with him. It's time for the ceremony. He says you must watch how the man you killed is honored."

  Vasant Rao rose easily and pinched out the oil lamp. In the darkened silence Hawksworth heard the lowing of cattle, as well as the distant drone of a chant. Outside the guards were waiting. He noted they carried sheathed swords. And they too were dressed in white.

  In the midday sunshine he quickly tried to survey the terrain. Jagged rock outcrops seemed to ring the village, with a gorge providing an easily protected entrance.

  He was right. It's a fortress. And probably impregnable.

  The road was wide, with rows of mud-brick homes on either side, and ahead was an open square, where a crowd had gathered. Facing the square, at the far end, was an immense house of baked brick, the largest in the fortress village, with a wide front and a high porch.

  As they approached the square, Hawksworth realized a deep pit had been newly excavated directly in the center. Mourners clustered nearby, silently waiting, while a group of women—five in all—held hands and moved slowly around the pit intoning a dirge.

  As they reached the side of the opening he saw the Rajput's body, lying face up on a fragrant bier of sandalwood and neem branches. His head and beard had been shaved and his body bound in a silk winding sheet. He was surrounded by garlands of flowers. The wood in the pit smelled of ghee and rose-scented coconut oil. Nearby, Brahmin priests recited in Sanskrit.

  "His body will be cremated with the full honor of a Rajput warrior." Vasant Rao stood alongside. "It's clear the Brahmins have been paid enough."

  Hawksworth looked around at the square and the nearby houses, the
ir shutters all sealed in mourning. Chanting priests in ceremonial robes had stationed themselves near the large house, and an Arabian mare, all white and bedecked with flowers, was tied at the entrance. Suddenly the tones of mournful, discordant music sounded around him.

  As Hawksworth watched, the heavy wooden doors of the great house opened slowly and a woman stepped into the midday sunshine. Even from their distance he could see that she was resplendent—in an immaculate white wrap that sparkled with gold ornaments—and her movements regal as she descended the steps and was helped onto the horse. As she rode slowly in the direction of the pit, she was supported on each side by Brahmin priests, long-haired men with stripes of white clay painted down their forehead.

  "She is his wife." Vasant Rao had also turned to watch. "Now you'll see a woman of the warrior caste follow her dharma."

  As the woman rode slowly by, Hawksworth sensed she was only barely conscious of her surroundings, as though she had been drugged. She circled the pit three times, then stopped near where Hawksworth and Vasant Rao were standing. As the priests helped her down from the mare, one urged her to drink again from a cup of dense liquid he carried. Her silk robe was fragrant with scented oil, and Hawksworth saw that decorations of saffron and sandal­wood had been applied to her arms and forehead.

  It's a curious form of mourning. She's dressed and perfumed as though for a banquet, not a funeral. And what's she drinking? From the way she moves I'd guess it's some opium concoction.

  She paused at the edge of the pit and seemed to glare for an instant at the five women who moved around her. Then she drank again from the cup, and calmly began removing her jewels, handing them to the priest, until her only ornament was a necklace of dark seeds. Next the Brahmins sprinkled her head with water from a pot and, as a bell began to toll, started helping her into the pit. Hawksworth watched in disbelief as she knelt next to her husband's body and lovingly cradled his head against her lap. Her eyes were lifeless but serene.

  The realization of what was happening struck Hawks­worth like a blow in the chest. But how could it be true? It was unthinkable.

  Then the man who had brought them, the son, held out his hand and one of the Brahmins bowed and handed him a burning torch. It flared brilliantly against the dark pile of earth at the front of the pit.

  God Almighty! No! Hawksworth instinctively started to reach for his pistol.

  A deafening chorus of wails burst from the waiting women as the young man flung the torch directly by the head of the bier. Next the priests threw more lighted torches alongside the corpse, followed by more oil. The flames licked tentatively around the edges of the wood, then burst across the top of the pyre. The fire swirled around the woman, and in an instant her oil-soaked robes flared, enveloping her body and igniting her hair. Hawksworth saw her open her mouth and say something, words he did not understand, and then the pain overcame her and she screamed and tried frantically to move toward the edge of the pit. As she reached the edge she saw the hovering priests, waiting with long poles to push her away, and she stumbled backward. Her last screams were drowned by the chorus of wailing women as she collapsed across the body of her husband, a human torch.

  Hawksworth stepped back in horror and whirled on Vasant Rao, who stood watching impassively.

  "This is murder! Is this more of your Rajput 'tradition’?"

  "It is what we call sati, when a brave woman joins her husband in death. Did you hear what she said? She pronounced the words 'five, two' as the life-spirit left her. At the moment of death we sometimes have the gift of prophecy. She was saying this is the fifth time she has burned herself with the same husband, and that only two times more are required to release her from the cycle of birth and death, to render her a perfect being."

  "I can't believe she burned herself willingly."

  "Of course she did. Rajput women are noble. It was the way she honored her husband, and her caste. It was her dharma."

  Hawksworth stared again at the pit. Priests were throwing more oil on the raging flames, which already had enveloped the two bodies and now licked around the edges, almost at Hawksworth's feet. The five women seemed crazed with grief, as they held hands and moved along the edge in a delirious dance. The heat had become intense, and Hawks­worth instinctively stepped back as tongues of fire licked over the edge of the pit. The mourning women appeared heedless of their own danger as they continued to circle, their light cloth robes now only inches from the flame. The air was filled with the smell of death and burning flesh.

  They must be mad with grief. They'll catch their clothes . . .

  At that instant the hem of one of the women's robes ignited. She examined the whipping flame with a wild, empty gaze, almost as though not seeing it. Then she turned on the other women, terror and confusion in her eyes.

  Hawksworth was already peeling off his jerkin. He'd seen enough fires on the gun deck to know the man whose clothes caught always panicked.

  If I can reach her in time I can smother the robe before she's burned and maimed. Her legs . . .

  Before he could move, the woman suddenly turned and poised herself at the edge of the roaring pit. She emitted one long intense wail, then threw herself directly into the fire. At that moment the robes of a second woman caught, and she too turned and plunged head-first into the flames.

  Merciful God! What are they doing!

  The three remaining women paused for a moment. Then they clasped hands, and, as though on a private signal, plunged over the edge into the inferno, their hair and robes igniting like dry tinder in a furnace. The women all clung together as the flames enveloped them.

  Hawksworth tried to look again into the pit, but turned away in revulsion.

  "What in hell is happening?"

  Vasant Rao's eyes were flooded with disbelief.

  "They must have been his concubines. Or his other wives. Only his first wife was allowed to have the place of honor beside his body. I've. . ." The Rajput struggled for composure. "I've never seen so many women die in a sati. It's . . ." He seemed unable to find words. "It's almost too much."

  "How did such a murderous custom begin?" Hawks­worth's eyes were seared now from the smoke and the smell of burning flesh. "It's unworthy of humanity."

  "We believe aristocratic Rajput women have always wished to do it. To honor their brave warriors. The Moghul has tried to stop it, however. He claims it began only a few centuries ago, when a Rajput raja suspected the women in his palace were trying to poison him and his ministers. Some believe the raja decreed that custom as protection for his own life, and then others followed. But I don't think that's true. I believe women in India have always done it, from ancient times. But what does it matter when it began. Now all rani, the wives of rajas, follow their husbands in death, and consider it a great honor. Today it seems his other women also insisted on joining her. I think it was against her wishes. She did not want to share her moment of glory. Sati is a noble custom, Captain Hawksworth, part of that Rajput strength of character wanting in other races."

  A hand seized Hawksworth's arm roughly and jerked him back through the crowd, a sea of eyes burning with contempt. Amid the drifting smoke he caught a glimpse of the bullock carts of the caravan, lined along the far end of the road leading into the fortress. The drivers were nowhere to be seen, but near the carts were cattle sheds for the bullocks.

  If they can send innocent women to their death, life means nothing here. They'll kill us for sure.

  He turned to Vasant Rao, whose face showed no trace of fear. The Rajput seemed oblivious to the smell of death as smoke from the fire engulfed the palms that lined the village roads. They were approaching the porch of the great house where the head of the dynasty had lived.

  Two guards shoved Hawksworth roughly to his knees. He looked up to see, standing on the porch of the house, the young man who had tossed the torch into the pit. He began speaking to them, in the tones of an announcement.

  "He's the son of the man you killed. He has claimed leaders
hip of the dynasty, and calls himself Raj Singh." Vasant Rao translated rapidly, as the man continued speaking. "He says that tomorrow there will be an eclipse of the sun here. It is predicted in the Panjika, the Hindu manual of astrology. His father, the leader of this dynasty of the sun, has died, and tomorrow the sun will die also for a time. The Brahmins have said it is fitting that you die with it. For high castes in India the death of the sun is an evil time, a time when the two great powers of the sky are in conflict. On the day of an eclipse no fires are lit in our homes. Food is discarded and all open earthenware pots are smashed. No one who wears the sacred thread of the twice-born can be out of doors during an eclipse. The Brahmin astrologers have judged it is the proper time for you to pay for your cowardly act. You will be left on a pike to die in the center of the square."

  Hawksworth drew himself up, his eyes still smarting from the smoke, and tried to fix the man's eyes. Then he spoke, in a voice he hoped would carry to all the waiting crowd.

  "Tell him his Brahmin astrologers know not the truth, neither past nor future." Hawksworth forced himself to still the tremble in his voice. "There will be no eclipse tomorrow. His Brahmins, who cannot foretell the great events in the heavens, should have no right to work their will on earth."

  "Have you gone mad?" Vasant Rao turned and glared at him as he spat the words in disgust. "Why not try to die with dignity."

  "Tell him."

  Vasant Rao stared at Hawksworth in dumb amazement. "Do you think we're all fools. The eclipse is foretold in the Panjika. It is the sacred book of the Brahmins. It's used to pick auspicious days for ceremonies, for weddings, for planting crops. Eclipses are predicted many years ahead in the Panjika. They have been forecast in India for centuries. Don't Europeans know an eclipse is a meeting of the sun and moon? Nothing can change that."

  "Tell him what I said. Exactly."

  Vasant Rao hesitated for a few moments and then reluctantly translated. The Rajput chieftain's face did not change and his reply was curt.

  Vasant Rao turned to Hawksworth. "He says you are a fool as well as an Untouchable."

  "Tell him that if I am to die with the sun, he must kill me now. I spit on his Brahmins and their Panjika. I say the eclipse will be this very day. In less than three hours."

  "In one pahar?

  "Yes."

  "No god, and certainly no man, can control such things. Why tell him this invention?" Vasant Rao's voice rose with his anger. "When this thing does not happen, you will die in even greater dishonor."

  "Tell him."

  Vasant Rao again translated, his voice hesitant. Raj Singh examined Hawksworth skeptically. Then he turned and spoke to one of the tall Rajputs standing nearby, who walked to the end of the porch and summoned several Brahmin priests. After a conference marked by much angry shouting and gesturing, one of the Brahmins turned and left. Moments later he reappeared carrying a book.

  "They have consulted the Panjika again." Vasant Rao pointed toward the book as one of the Brahmins directed a stream of language at Raj Singh. "He says there is no mistaking the date of the eclipse, and the time. It is in the lunar month of Asvina, which is your September-October. Here in the Deccan the month begins and ends with the full moon. The tithi or lunar day of the eclipse begins tomorrow."

  As Hawksworth listened, he felt his heart begin to race.

  The calculations at the observatory had a lot to say about your Panjika's lunar calendar. And they showed how unwieldy it is compared to the solar calendar the Arabs and Europeans use. A cycle of the moon doesn't divide evenly into the days in a year. So your astrologers have to keep adding and subtracting days and months to keep years the same length. It's almost impossible to relate a lunar calendar accurately to a solar year. Jamshid Beg, the astronomer from Samarkand, loved to check out the predictions in the Hindu Panjika.

  If I deciphered his calculations right, this is one eclipse the Panjika called wrong. The astrologer must have miscopied his calculations. Or maybe he just bungled one of the main rules of lunar bookkeeping. Solar days begin at sunrise, but lunar days are different. The moon can rise at any time of day. According to the system, the lunar day current at sunrise is supposed to be the day that's counted. But if the moon rises just after sunrise, and sets before sunrise the next day, then that whole lunar "day" has to be dropped from the count.

  Today was one of those days. It should have been dropped from the lunar calendar, but it wasn't. So the prediction in the Panjika is a day off.

  According to Jamshid Beg's calculations, at least. God help me if he was wrong.

  "Tell him his Panjika is false. If I'm to be killed the day of the eclipse, he must kill me now, today."

  Raj Singh listened with increasing disquiet as Vasant Rao translated. He glanced nervously at the Brahmins and then replied in a low voice.

  Vasant Rao turned to Hawksworth. "He asks what proof you have of your forecast?"

  Hawksworth looked around. What proof could there be of an impending eclipse?

  "My word is my word."

  Another exchange followed.

  "He is most doubtful you are wiser than the Panjika." Vasant Rao paused for a moment, then continued. "I am doubtful as well. He says that if you have invented a lie you are very foolish. And we will all soon know."

  "Tell him he can believe as he chooses. The eclipse will be today."

  Again there was an exchange. Then Vasant Rao turned to Hawksworth, a mystified expression on his face.

  "He says if what you say is true, then you are an avatar, the incarnation of a god. If the eclipse is today, as you say, then the village must begin to prepare immediately. People must all move indoors. Once more, is what you say true?"

  "It's true." Hawksworth strained to keep his voice confident, and his eyes on the Rajput chieftain as he spoke. "It doesn't matter whether he believes or not."

  Raj Singh consulted again with the Brahmin priests, who had now gathered around. They shifted nervously, and several spat to emphasize their skepticism. Then the Rajput leader returned and spoke again to Vasant Rao.

  "He says that he will take the precaution of ordering the high castes indoors. If what you say comes to pass, then you have saved the village from a great harm."

  Hawksworth started to speak but Vasant Rao silenced him with a gesture.

  "He also says that if what you say is a lie, he will not wait until tomorrow to kill you. You will be buried alive at sunset today, up to the throat. Then you will be stoned to death by the women and children of the village. It is the death of criminal Untouchables."

  As the smoke from the funeral pyre continued to drift through the village, the high-caste men and women entered their homes and sealed their doors. Women took their babies in their laps and began their prayers. Only low castes and children too young to wear the sacred thread remained outside. Even Vasant Rao was allowed to return to the room where they had been held prisoner. Hawksworth suddenly found himself without guards, and he wandered back to the square to look once more at the pit where the funeral pyre had been. All that remained of the bodies were charred skeletons.

  An hour ago there was life. Now there's death. The difference is the will to live.

  And luck. The turn of chance.

  Was Jamshid Beg right? If not, God help me . . .

  He knelt down beside the pit. To look at death and to wait.