Prince of Dharma by Ashok Banker Page A

care. She didn’t have much to say to him anyway, and there was nothing he could say that she would want to hear. 
     
    He went over to the far end of the room, bent down and picked up a gunnysack filled with something heavy. Dragging it across the room, he dumped it at her feet. A subdued moan issued from the coarse jute sack and faint movements caused it to billow outward. The tantric frowned, looked around, picked up a short wedge of wood, bent down and clubbed a rounded bulge that was distending the mouth end of the sack. At the unmistakable sound of wood striking bone, the moaning and agitated movements subsided. Satisfied, the tantric dropped the makeshift club and stood, dusting his hands. 
     
    Behind Manthara, the serving girl gasped out a brief prayer for forgiveness to the Mother Deity Sri. She was forever offering prayers to the Devi, despite Manthara’s specific orders forbidding her. She would have to be reminded later. Manthara unknotted the calf’s-leather purse that she wore at her waist and fished out the coins she owed the tantric. 
     
    He reached out silently for the rupees but she held them clutched in her fist a moment longer. His eyes registered the delay and rose slowly to meet her own. She realised at once that the man was under the influence of some drug. Ganja, most likely. Tantrics always seemed to favour ganja for some reason. She wrinkled her face with distaste. She disapproved of drugs and intoxicants; they made one careless, and when employed in such undertakings, a careless man was a dead man. She held the money back, bitterly aware of how easily this wretched fool could ruin everything. 
     
    She questioned him sharply. 
     
    ‘Were you seen or heard?’ 
     
    He stared dully at her, his black pupils dilated far more than warranted by the dim light. She waited. 
     
    He shook his head at last. 
     
    She gestured at the gunnysack. 
     
    ‘He will not be missed?’ 
     
    She waited another eternity for another dumb shake of his head. 
     
    ‘He was an orphan like the others? Taken from an anarthashram like the five before him? No parents or known relatives?’ 
     
    Another shake of the head. 
     
    ‘And yet you made sure he was a born Brahmin, with his naming ceremony and thread ceremony performed correctly, as well as his coming-of-age ceremony performed in the past week, just like the other boys before him?’ 
     
    A longer pause this time, followed by an up-down affirmative nod. 
     
    ‘And nobody has questioned you about any of the earlier disappearances? You haven’t talked to anyone about any of these kidnappings, or about your dealings with me at all? No PFs sniffing around asking funny questions?’ 
     
    He seemed unsure whether that required a shake or a nod. He settled for moving his head diagonally. His eyes had drifted down to her fist, still clenched tightly around the six silver coins, one for each year of the boy’s age. 
     
    She wasn’t satisfied. Far from it. But if he had been stupid or overtly careless, she wouldn’t be standing here bantering right now; PFs would be breaking down the door and hauling them all away to the maharaja’s dungeons. And he had delivered a half-dozen Brahmin boys to her thus far. It wasn’t easy to find someone to kidnap a fresh six-year-old boy every month in a city as priggishly self-righteous as Ayodhya. Even the outlaws and waylayers she had interviewed over the years balked once they learned what was to become of the boys, spitting viciously at her feet. 
     
    She didn’t understand how murderers and thieves could claim to be so righteous, but that was Arya morality for you. 
     
    She had found this tantric after great effort and risk. But now, she realised, she had dealt with him once too often. He knew too much of her affairs. With the great day so close at hand, that much knowledge could be dangerous to her. Yes, she decided, she would have to make sure he didn’t have an opportunity to share his