“So they keep telling me-what of it?”
“You must understand that the Swapaks are a very ancient subcaste of the Shudra Ahir-the herdsmen of the Vinkhala tribe-which is one of the sixteen branches of the Seventh Division of the Fire Races.”
“And?”
“They are divided into two great classes, the noble and the ignoble, the former being divided into thirty-seven subtribes and the latter into ninety-three. The Shudra Ahir were formerly one of the thirty-seven, until after the Third Incarnation of Lord Kalpa, when they came up from Anhalwara by way of Lower Oond, and intermarried with a tribe of degenerated Mulgrassias.”
“So?”
“Jack, just to put that in context, you must understand that those people are regarded as Dhangs of the lower subcaste (yet considerably above the Dhoms!) by the Virda, whom they nonetheless abhor. To give you an idea of just how degenerate they were, these Dhangs, in an earlier age, had intermarried with the Kalpa Salkh of Kalapur, of whom almost nothing is known save that not even the ape-men of Hari would allow themselves to be overshadowed by them.”
“I am waiting for your point to arrive.”
“The point is that the Shudra Ahir have been herdsmen and feeders of livestock since before the breaking of the Three Jade Eggs, and the Swapak, for almost as long, have been-”
“Feeders of bloodsucking insects in animal hospitals that are operated by some other mahajan of some other caste-yes, I know, it’s all been tediously explained to me,” said Jack, flinching as a centipede bit through the flesh of his inner thigh and tapped into an artery. “But those Swapak have been assured of jobs for so many thousands of years that they have become indolent. They make unreasonable demands of the Brahmins who run this place, and lounge around out front all day and night, pestering passers-by.”
“You sound like a rich Frank complaining about Vagabonds.”
“If I were not having my blood sucked out by thousands of vermin, I might take offense-as it is, your japes and witticisms strike me as more of the same.”
Surendranath laughed. “You must forgive me. When I learned that you were earning your keep in this way, I rashly assumed that you had become a desperate wretch. Now I appreciate that you take pride in your work.”
“Compared to those layabouts who are encamped in front, Padraig and I-ouch!-are willing to do this work for a more competitive rate, and comport ourselves as professionals.”
“I very much fear that you will be comporting yourselves as dead men if you do not get out of Ahmadabad,” said Surendranath.
Above, Jack heard commands uttered in Gujarati, then the welcome creak of the pulley. The rope came tight and raised him a few inches off the ground. He writhed and shook himself, trying to shed as many of the creatures as he could. “What are you talking about? They don’t even step on bugs. What’re they going to do to a couple of men?”
“Oh, it is not difficult for such people to come to an understanding, Jack, with members of castes that specialize in mayhem.”
Jack was now raised up out of the pit and swung round over the floor again. The bug-doctors converged on him with brooms, gently sweeping away the engorged ticks and leeches. Then they let him down and began untying the bonds. As soon as he could, Jack reached up and pulled off the gauze face-mask. Now he was able to get a good look at Surendranath for the first time.
When they’d parted company, outside the customs-house of Surat, more than a year ago, Surendranath, like Jack, had been a shivering wretch, dressed in rags, and still walking slightly bowlegged on account of the thoroughgoing search that was meted out to all who entered the Mogul’s realms there, to make sure that they were not secreting Persian Gulf pearls in their rectal orifices.
Today, of course, Jack looked much the same, save that he was covered with bug bites and lying on his belly. But in front of his nose was a pair of fine leather slippers covered with red velvet brocade, and above them, a pair of orange-and-yellow-striped silk breeches, and hanging over those, a long shirt of excellent linen. This was surmounted by the head of Surendranath. He had grown his moustache out but otherwise had a professional shave-which must have cost him dearly, so early in the morning-and he had a sizeable gold ring in his nose, and wore a snow-white turban with an overwrap of wine-colored silk edged in gold.
“It’s not my fault I’m stuck in this fucking country with no money,” Jack said. “Blame it on those pirates.”
Surendranath snorted. “Jack, when I lose a single rupee I lie awake all night, cursing myself and the man who took it from me. You do not need to urge me to hate the pirates who took our gold!”
“Very well, then.”
“But does this mean that other Hindoostanis, belonging to a different caste, speaking a different language, residing at the other end of the subcontinent, must suffer?”
“I have to eat.”
“There are other ways for a Frank to make a living in Hind.”
“I see those rich Dutchmen in the streets every day. Bully for them. But I can’t make a living from trade when I’ve nothing to my name. Besides-for Christ’s sake, you Banyans make even Jews and Armenians seem like nuns in the bazaar.”
“Thank you,” Surendranath said modestly.
“Besides, in Surat and all the other treaty ports, there is an astronomical price on my head.”
“It is true that, as the result of your dealings with the Viceroy, the House of Hacklheber, and the Duc d’Arcachon, all of Spain, Germany, and France now wish to kill you,” Surendranath admitted, helping Jack to his feet.
“You left out the Ottoman Empire.”
“But Hind is another world! You have seen only a narrow strip along the coast. There are many opportunities in the interior-”
“Oh, one bug-pit is the same as the next, I’m sure.”
“-for a Frank who knows how to use the saber and the musket.”
“I’m listening,” Jack said. “Fucking bugs!” and then-distracted, as he was, by the peculiar nature of Surendranath’s discourse, he slapped a mosquito that had landed on the side of his neck. It was only noticed by Surendranath-who made a sound as if he were regurgitating his own gallbladder-and the boy who was standing next to Jack, holding out his neatly folded clothes. Jack met the boy’s eye for a moment; then both looked down at the palm of Jack’s hand, where the mosquito lay crumpled in a spot of Jack’s, or someone’s, blood.
“This lad thinks I’ve murdered his grandmother now,” Jack said. “Could you ask him to shut up?”
But the boy was already saying something, in a bewildered-yet piping and clearly audible-voice. The senior bug-doctor hustled over shouting. Then they all converged, and to Jack they suddenly all looked every bit as determined and bloodthirsty as their patients. He snatched his clothes.
Surendranath did not even try to argue the matter, but grabbed Jack’s arm and led him out of the room in a brisk walk that soon turned into a run. For news of Jack’s crime had spread, faster than thought, through the echoing galleries of the hospital and out its innumerable holes to the front, and (to guess from the sounds that came back) a hundred or more unemployed Swapaks had taken it as a signal to force their way in and launch a furious manhunt.
The monkeys, birds, lizards, and beasts sensed that something was happening, and began to make noise, which worked in Jack and Surendranath’s favor. The Banyan got lost in the darkness of the intestinal-parasite ward almost immediately, but Jack-who’d been skulking in and out of the place for weeks-surged into the fore, and soon enough got them pointed towards an exit; they staged an orderly retreat through the monkey room, opening all of the cage-doors on their way through, which (to put it mildly) created a diversion. It was a diversion that fed on itself, for the monkeys were clever enough to do some cage-opening of their own. Once all of the primates had been set free, they spread out into surrounding wards and began to give less intelligent creatures their freedom.