Padraig accepted this news with a tiny nod of the head. But Surendranath had overheard them. He had retreated into his palanquin and drawn red curtains around it for privacy, and it was easy to forget he was there.
"What is the Intelligence Test?" he demanded to know, and swept the curtain aside.
"A private joke," said the annoyed Padraig.
But Jack saw good reasons to explain it, and so he said, "Cast your memory back to when Fortune had set us ashore in Surat—"
"I remember it every day," said Surendranath.
"You stayed there to pursue your career. We fled inland to get away from the diverse European assassins who infested that town, and who were all looking for us. Soon enough, we came upon a Mogul road-block. Hindoos and Mohametans were allowed to pass through with only minor harassment and taking of baksheesh, but when it became known that we were Franks, they took us aside and made us sit in a tent together. One by one, each of us was taken out alone, and conducted to a field nearby, and handed a musket—which was unloaded—and a powder-horn, and pouch of balls."
"What did you do?" Surendranath demanded.
"Gaped at it like a farmer."
"I likewise," said Padraig.
"So you failed the Intelligence Test?"
"I would rather say that we passed it. Van Hoek did the same as we. Mr. Foot tried to load the musket, but got the procedure backwards—put the ball in first, then the powder. But Vrej Esphahnian and Monsieur Arlanc loaded the weapon and discharged it in the general direction of a Hindoo idol that the Moguls had been using for target practice."
"They were inducted," said Surendranath.
"As far as we know, they have been serving in the armed forces of the local king ever since that day." Jack said.
"This happened north of Surat?"
"Yes. Not far from the Habitation of Dust."
"So, were you in the realm of Terror of the Idolaters?"
"No," said Padraig, "this road-block was at a border crossing. The Moguls who gave us the Intelligence Test, and who press-ganged our friends, were in the pay of—"
"Dispenser of Mayhem!" cried Surendranath.
"The very same," said Jack.
"That is an unexpected boon for us," said the Banyan. "For as you know, the realm of Dispenser of Mayhem lies squarely astride the road to Delhi."
"That amounts to saying that Dispenser of Mayhem has been doing a miserable job of controlling the Marathas," Jack said.
"Which means that if we can find Vrej Esphahnian and Monsieur Arlanc, they will have much useful intelligence for us!"
Jack reckoned that this was as good a moment as any to spring the trap. "Indeed, it seems as if the Cabal—wretched and scattered though we are—may be very useful to you, Surendranath. Or to whichever merchant ends up hiring us, and making the run to Delhi first."
A sort of brisk whooshing noise now, as Surendranath yanked the curtain closed around his palanquin. Then silence—though Jack thought he could hear a curious throbbing, as if Surendranath were trying to stifle agonized laughter.
The next morning they got under way early and traveled for a few miles to a border, where they crossed into the realm of Shatterer of Worlds.
"Shatterer of Worlds has extirpated the local Marathas, but there are ragged bandit gangs all over the place," Surendranath said.
"Reminds me of France," Jack mused.
"The comparison is apt," Surendranath said. "As a matter of fact, it is not even a comparison. Shatterer of Worlds is a Frenchman."
"Those damned Frogs are everywhere!" Jack exclaimed. "Does the Great Mogul have any other kings from Christendom?"
"I believe that Bringer of Thunder is a Neapolitan artilleryman. He owns a piece of Rajasthan."
"Would you like us to round up some Frankish clothes, then? To scare away the highwaymen?" Padraig inquired.
"No need—in Kathiawar, they still observe the ancient customs," said Surendranath, and alighted from his palanquin to parley with some Hindoos who were squatting by the side of the road. In a few minutes, one of them arose and took up a position in the front of the tiny caravan.
A STICK WAS JABBED into the salty concrete that passed for soil hereabouts. A yard away was another stick. A third stick had been lashed across the tops of the first two, and a fourth across the bottom. Miles of vermilion thread had been run back and forth between the top and bottom stick. A woman in an orange sari squatted before this contrivance maneuvering a smaller stick through the vertical threads, drawing another thread behind it. A couple of yards away was the same thing again, except that the sticks, the colors, and the woman were different; and this woman was chatting with a third woman who had also managed to round up four sticks and some thread.
The same was repeated all the way to the horizon on both sides of the road. Some of the weavers were working with coarse undyed thread, but most of their work was in vivid colors that burned in the light of the sun. In some places there would be an irregular patch of green, or blue, or yellow, where some group of weavers were filling a large order. In other zones, each weaver worked with a different thread and so there might be an acre or two in which no two frames were of the same color. The only people who were standing were a few boys carrying water; a smattering of bony wretches bent under racks of thread that were strapped to their backs; and a two-wheeled ox-cart meandering about and collecting finished bits of cloth. A rutted road cut through the middle of it all, headed off in the general direction of Diu: a Portuguese enclave at the tip of Kathiawar. This was the third day of their journey from Ahmadabad. The Charan continued to plod along ahead of them, humming to himself, occasionally eating a handful of something from a bag slung over his shoulder.
Out of all the thousands of Pieces of India stretched out for viewing, one caught Jack's eye, like a familiar face in a crowd: a square of blue Calicoe just like one of Eliza's dresses. He decided that he had better get some conversation going.
"Your narration puts me in mind of a question I have been meaning to ask of the first Hindoo I met who had the faintest idea what the hell I was saying," he said.
Down in the palanquin, Surendranath startled awake.
Padraig sat up straighter in his saddle and blinked. "But no one has said a word these last two hours, Jack."
Surendranath was game. "There is much in Hindoostan that cries out, to the Western mind, for explanation," he said agreeably.
"Until we washed ashore near Surat, I fancied I had my thumb on the ‘stan' phenomenon," Jack said. "Turks live in Turkestan. Balochs live in Balochistan. Tajiks live in Tajikistan. Of course none of 'em ever stay put in their respective 'stans, which causes the world no end of trouble, but in principle it is all admirably clear. But now here we are in Hindoostan. And I gather that it soon comes to an end, if we go that way." Jack waved his right arm, which, since they were going south, meant that he was gesturing towards the west. "But—" (now sweeping his left arm through a full eight points of the compass, from due south to due east) "—in those directions it goes on practically forever. And every person speaks a different language, has skin a different color, and worships a different graven image; it is as varie-gated as this" (indicating a pied hillside of weavers). "Leading to the question, what is the basis for 'stanhood or 'stanitude? To lump so many into one 'stan implies you have something in common."
Surendranath leaned forward in his palanquin and looked as if he were just about to answer, then settled back into his cushions with a faint smile under the twin spirals of his waxed moustachio. "It is a mystery of the Orient," he said gravely.
"For Christ's sake, you people need to get organized," Jack said. "You don't even have a common government—it's Moguls up here, and from what you are telling me, if we went south we would soon enough run afoul of those Marathas, and farther south yet, it's those fiends in human form, who've got Moseh and Dappa and the others—"