“Where has it gotten you though?”
Ahead, Sword of Divine Fire could see the Flat Brown Rock, which—together with the Little Gray Rock, which stood about a hundred yards distant—accounted for most of the local topography. The Fourth Meander made a small excursion to go around it. The clan of the Flat Brown Rock Excursion were reputed to be the finest horticulturalists of the whole Ditch, and on cold nights were known to stay up sitting on their cabbages like hens warming their eggs. Normally, they would be turning round to smile proudly at their monarch. But today they squatted on the bank, hunched over with their backs turned to him, and refused to meet his gaze. Sword of Divine Fire could not fathom it until he noticed a gap forming in the line of persons. They were packed in nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, but still they were finding some way to shift sideways, creating an open space two yards across, which gradually expanded to three. In the center of that open space, a bony woman in a threadbare garment was hunched over a dead plant.
Sword of Divine Fire’s reaction was succinct: “Fuck!” The woman cringed as if he’d hit her with a bullwhip. Then: “What has happened to our potato?”
“Sire, I launched an investigation as soon as I was informed. The khud-kashta of the Fourth Meander has been sternly brought to account. Furthermore, I have made discreet inquiries with Lord of Righteous Carnage, as well as with Shambhaji, to ascertain whether it might be possible to buy a replacement potato…”
“Come off it! Where’s the money coming from? We can’t even feed the bullock.”
“If we put off purchasing a new rope…”
“The rope has been spliced so many times it’s naught but splices. Besides! Jesus Christ! Shambhaji!? You asked him? I was sent down here to make war on Shambhaji.”
“But you have not actually conducted an offensive operation against him in years.”
“What, I’m besieging his citadel.”
“You call it a Siege—others would describe it as a very long Picnic.”
“In any event—Shambhaji is the enemy.”
“In Hindoostan, all things are possible.”
“Then where is my fucking potato!?”
Silence. Then the woman flung herself on the ground and began to beseech Sword of Divine Fire for mercy.
“Oh, splendid! Now she’s probably going to go set fire to herself or something,” the king muttered. Then he sighed. “What has your investigation turned up?”
“It may have been sabotage.”
“Those Right Bankers, y’think?”
“Retribution for many Ditch-Jumpings.”
“Well, I don’t want to start a war,” mused Sword of Divine Fire, “or my rutabaga will be next.”
“I would not put anything beneath the Right Bank Vhadriyas, they are scarcely above apes.”
“Tell ’em it’s my fault.”
“I beg your pardon, sire?”
“Karma. I looked crossways at a cow, or something…make some shit up. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
“Truly you are the wisest ruler this kingdom has ever had…”
“Yeah, too bad my term’s up in another four months.”
Half an hour later, Sword of Divine Fire alighted from his donkey, and his zamindar emerged from his palanquin, and they stood together at the brink of the Large Hole in the Ground. All of the water that struggled out to the end of the Ditch emptied into this Hole. Members of the local Koli caste brought wagon-loads of black dirt hither from their dirt-mines in other parts of the jagir and dumped it into the hole. Then they pounded it with timbers, mixing it with the ditch-water, and drew off the liquor that floated on top and put it into a motley collection of pots and pans. These they boiled over fires made with wood brought down out of the hills by the people of the wood-splitter caste. When the pots had nearly boiled dry, they dumped their contents out into flat shallow earthenware trays and left them out under the sun. After a while, those trays filled up with a whitish powder—
“Who the hell is that man in the robe, and why is he eating my saltpeter?” demanded Sword of Divine Fire, visoring his eyes with one hand and gazing over towards the tray-farm.
Everyone looked over to see that, indeed, a figure in a long off-white robe—a cross between a Frankish monk’s robe and an Arab djellaba—was nibbling at a handful of saltpeter-slush that he’d scooped up from one of the trays. His face was obscured by the hood of the robe, which he’d pulled over his head to shield himself from the sun.