Not a rupee had changed hands.

Westphalen watched with growing amazement.

Next stop was on Westphalen’s side of the street, the chupatti stall next door. The husband brought a basketful out for inspection. Another nod, and these too were deposited on the back of a mule.

Again, no money changed hands—and no questions about quality. Westphalen had never seen anything like it since his arrival in India. These merchants would haggle with their mothers over the price of breakfast.

He could imagine only one thing that could wring such cooperation from them: fear.

The priest moved on without stopping at the water stand.

“Something wrong with your water?” Westphalen said to the vendor squatting on the ground beside him. He spoke in English. He saw no reason to learn an Indian tongue, and had never tried. There were fourteen major languages on this Godforsaken subcontinent and something like two hundred and fifty dialects. An absurd situation. What few words he had picked up had been through osmosis rather than conscious effort. After all, it was the natives’ responsibility to learn to understand him. And most of them did, especially the merchants.

“The temple has its own water,” the vendor said without looking up.

“Which temple is that?”

Westphalen wanted to know what the priest held over these merchants’ heads to make them so compliant. It was information that might prove useful in the future.

“The Temple-in-the-Hills.”

“I didn’t know there was a temple in the hills.”

This time the water vendor raised his turbaned head and stared at him. The dark eyes held a disbelieving look, as if to say, How could you not know?

“And to which one of your heathen gods is this particular temple dedicated?” His words seemed to echo in the surrounding silence.

The water vendor whispered, “Kali, The Black Goddess.”

Oh, yes. He had heard that name before. She was supposedly popular in the Bengal region. These Hindus had more gods than you could shake a stick at. A strange religion, Hinduism. He had heard that it had little or no dogma, no founder, and no leader. Really—what kind of a religion was that?

“I thought her big temple was down near Calcutta, at Dakshinesvar.”

“There are many temples to Kali,” the water vendor said. “But none like the Temple-in-the-Hills.”

“Really? And what’s so special about this one?”

“Rakoshi.”

“What’s that?”

But the water vendor lowered his head and refused to respond any further. It was as if he thought he had said too much already.

Six weeks ago, Westphalen would not have tolerated such insolence. But six weeks ago a rebellion by the Sepoys had been unthinkable.

He took a final sip of the water, tossed a coin into the silent vendor’s lap, and stepped out into the full ferocity of the sun. The air in the open was like a blast from a burning house. He felt the dust that perpetually overhung the street mix with the beads of perspiration on his face, leaving him coated with a fine layer of salty mud.