The Moghul

Hawksworth understood almost nothing of what he saw. Several times he had started to ask Vasant Rao some question about a village, but the time never seemed right. The Rajput was constantly occupied with the progress of the caravan and never spoke unless he was giving an order. The long silence of the road had gathered between them until it was almost an invisible wall.
    For no apparent reason this changed suddenly on the afternoon after Narayanpur, as the caravan rumbled into the small village of Nimgul and began working its way along the single road through the town. Vasant Rao drew his mount alongside Hawksworth's and pointed to a white plaster building up ahead that dominated the center of the village.
    "I grew to manhood in a village such as this, Captain, in a house much like that one there."
    Hawksworth examined the well-kept house, and then the village around it. Spreading away on all sides were tumbledown thatch-roofed homes of sticks and clay, many raised on foot-high stilts to keep them above the seasonal mud. Gaunt, naked children swarmed about the few remaining trees, their voices piping shrilly at play, while elderly men lounged on the porches smoking hookahs. Most of the able-bodied men seemed to be in the fields, leaving their women—unsmiling laborers in drab body-length wraps, a large marriage ring dangling from one nostril—to toil in the midday sun combing seeds from large stacks of cotton, shelling piles of small-eared corn, and boiling a dense brown liquid in wide iron pans.
    Vasant Rao drew up his horse in front of the pans and spoke rapidly with one of the sad-eyed women. There was a tinkle of her heavy silver bracelets as she bowed to him, then turned to ask a turbaned overseer to offer them two clay cups of the liquid. Vasant Rao threw the man a small coin, a copper pice , and passed one of the cups to Hawksworth. It was viscous and sweeter than anything he had ever tasted. Vasant Rao savored a mouthful, then discarded the cup into the road.
    "They're boiling cane juice to make gur , those brown blocks of sugar you see in the bazaars, for the Brahmin landholders to sell. She's a Camar, a low caste, and she works from sunup to dusk for a day's supply of chapattis , fried wheat cakes, for her household. Wages haven't risen in the villages since I was a boy."
    "Why did she ask the overseer to bring you the cup?"
    "Because I'm a Rajput." Vasant Rao seemed startled by the question. "I would pollute my caste if I took a cup from the hand of a Camar. If a Rajput or a Brahmin eats food that's been handled by a member of the low castes, he may be obligated to undergo ritual purification. If you are born to a high caste, Captain, you must honor its obligations."
    Hawksworth studied him, wondering why he had finally decided to talk.
    Security had been unaccountably tight for a shipment of lead. Vasant Rao had insisted that all carts be kept within the perimeter of the camp, inside the circle of guards. No one, neither drivers nor guards, had been allowed to touch the contents of the carts: sealed packages individually wrapped and lashed in bricks.
    "Did you grow up around here?" Hawksworth tried to widen the opening.
    "No, of course not." He laughed sharply. "Only a feringhi would ask that. I was born in the foothills of the Himalayas, hundreds of kos north of Agra. In a Rajput village. The villages in the Surat district are ruled by Brahmins."
    "Are Rajput villages like this?"
    "All villages are more or less the same, Captain. How could it be otherwise? They're all Hindu. This is the real India, my friend. Muslims and Moghuls, and now Christians, come and go. This stays the same. These villages will endure long after the marble cities of the Moghuls are dust. That's why I feel peace here. Knowing this cannot be destroyed, no matter who rules in Agra."
    Hawksworth looked about the village. It seemed to be ruled by cattle. They roamed freely, arrogantly, secure in the centuries-old instinct that they were sacred and inviolable. Naked children had begun to swarm after the carts, and a few young women paused to cast discreet glances at the handsome Rajput horsemen. But the main work pressed monotonously forward. It was a place untouched by the world beyond its horizons.
    "You said this was a Brahmin village. Are all the men here priests?"
    "Of course not." Vasant Rao grunted a laugh and gestured toward the fields beyond. "Who would do the work? There must be the other castes, or the Brahmins would