pushing into the temple and there was scarce room in the cloister.
Somewhere outside a horse neighed. Men shouted protests as the
newcomers shoved their way inside, but at last the commotion ended and
the tall man stepped to the edge of the stone platform on which the
small shrine stood. He spoke for a long time, and every few moments
his words would provoke a growl of agreement, and then the crowd would
look at Sharpe and some would spit at him. Sharpe stared sullenly back
at them. They were getting a rare night’s amusement, he reckoned. A
captured Englishman was to be killed in front of them, and Sharpe could
not blame them for relishing the prospect. But he was damned if he
would die easy. He could do some damage, he reckoned, maybe not much,
but enough so that the jet tis remembered the night they were given a
redcoat to kill.
The tall man finished his speech, then limped down the short flight of
steps and approached Sharpe. He carried himself with dignity, like a
man who knows his own worth to be high. He stopped a few paces from
Sharpe and his face showed derision as he stared at the Englishman’s
sorry state.
“My name,” he said in English, ‘is Jama.”
Sharpe said nothing.
“You killed my brother,” Jama said.
“I’ve killed a lot of men,” Sharpe said, his voice hoarse so that it
scarcely carried the few paces that separated the two men. He spat to
clear his throat.
“I’ve killed a lot of men,” he said again.
“And Naig was one,” Jama said.
“He deserved to die,” Sharpe said.
Jama sneered at that answer.
“If my brother deserved to die then so did the British who traded with
him.”
That was probably true, Sharpe thought, but he said nothing. He could
see some pointed helmets at the back of the crowd and he guessed that
some of the Mahratta horsemen who still roamed the Deccan Plain had
come to see his death. Maybe the same Mahrattas who had bought the two
thousand missing muskets, muskets that Hakeswill had supplied and
Torrance had lied about to conceal the theft.
“So now you will die,” Jama said simply.
Sharpe shrugged. Run to the right, he was thinking, and grab the
nearest musket, but he knew he would be slowed by the pain. Besides,
the men on the cloister would jump down to overpower him. But he had
to do something. Anything! A man could not just be killed like a
dog.
“You will die slowly,”Jama said, ‘to satisfy the debt of blood that is
owed to my family.”
“You want a death,” Sharpe asked, ‘to balance your brother’s death?”
“Exactly so,”Jama said gravely.
“Then kill a rat,” Sharpe said, ‘or strangle a toad. Your brother
deserved to die. He was a thief.”
“And you English have come to steal all India,” Jama said equably.
He looked again at Sharpe’s wounds, and seemed to get satisfaction from
them.
“You will soon be pleading for my mercy,” he said.
“Do you know what jet tis are?”
“I know,” Sharpe said.
“Prithviraj,” Jama said, gesturing towards the taller jetti who was
bowing before the small altar, ‘has castrated a man with his bare
hands.
He will do that to you and more, for tonight I have promised these
people they will see the death of a hundred parts. You will be torn to
pieces, Englishman, but you will live as your body is divided, for that
is a jettfs skill. To kill a man slowly, without weapons, tearing him
piece by piece, and only when your screams have assuaged the pain of my
brother’s death will I show you mercy. “Jama gave Sharpe one last look
of disdain, then turned and walked back to the shrine’s steps.
Prithviraj leaned forward and rang a tiny hand bell to draw the god’s
attention, then put his hands together and bowed his head a last
time.
The second jetti, the one with the spear, watched Sharpe with an
expressionless face.
Sharpe forced himself to stand. His back ached and his legs were weak
so that he tottered, making the crowd laugh at him. He took a step to