Shishupal groaned. The guard did not smile, but opened the door. Leaving his still muttering companion on guard at the door, he led the pair to a dim chamber, heavy with shadows, sweat and smoke. The place was filled with sprawled opium smokers, their dark faces hung slack and empty, as if dreaming. Some were laughing hysterically, while others had their face twisted into unsettling smiles.

A stained curtain was pushed aside to reveal a large space that reeked of ale, half-eaten meat, roadside perfumes and vomit. A man, shirtless, his back covered in a tattoo of a hawk, sat on a long table in the centre of the room. Two others, and a woman, four in all, sat around him, counting coins and cards, amidst an assortment of pipes, opium blocks, dripping candles and half empty bottles. One of them, a fat man, was struggling to cut a strip of meat with a butcher’s knife.

Besides the four at the table, there were two others. One, with a bald head, stood bored on the other side of the room, his head resting against a wall mural of a naked woman. A hammer leaned against the wall beside him. A woman with a black patch over one eye sat near the curtained doorway through which they had entered. Her hands were knuckle-deep in a mound of rice, a loaded crossbow beside her plate. Next to her stood a clock the height of a man, its sides chipped and discoloured, its workings hanging out like gutted entrails. Strangely enough, the pendulum still moved in mindless swings.

The guard walked up to the tattooed man and leaned down to whisper into his ear and then left the chamber. The man rose slowly, putting down his tankard of ale and rolling the knobs of his shoulder blades, making it seem that the hawk etched on his back was unfurling its wings.

‘You are Lord Gajraj?’ asked Shishupal.

‘Does he owe you money, man?’

‘Uhm, no.’

‘Then I am Gajraj.’ He bowed as a couple of the players around the table sniggered. ‘What can Gajraj do for you?’

‘What is Dvarka?’ Eklavvya asked.

Like a newly formed hot sword quenched in cold water, the room hissed into silence; the pregnant pause before a dam bursts. Shishupal was as bewildered by Eklavvya’s question as the rest of them. What is Dvarka? Anayasa hadn’t mentioned the word. But surely there was a more diplomatic way to extract the information. They could have taken Gajraj into confidence, bribed him, coaxed the truth out of him, in return for immunity or other benefits he desired. Anything but asking him in front of his henchmen. And...henchwoman.

‘Is that a forestword for shit?’ asked Gajraj, eyes narrowing.

Croaky, tight laughs to hide the tension erupted around the table. Shishupal saw the woman with the patch straighten from her rice bowl. The bored man on the other side stopped picking his nose and rubbed the long handle of his hammer.