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of the Devil – but Jack was used to them.
    This one surprised him, though. He’d seen train avatars many times, but never something moving along the road like this. He’d heard stories of the marvellous machines back in Rajthana, but he’d never known whether to believe in them. Whatever the case, it looked as though the Rajthanans were bringing in their most powerful devices now.
    The rebels didn’t stand a chance.
    A Rajthanan officer riding nearby stopped his horse for a moment, closed his eyes and made a small gesture with his hand. The avatar shuddered and groaned, then began to creep forward again.
    None of the onlookers seemed to have noticed the man, but Jack knew he must be a siddha – a ‘perfected one’. Only a siddha could command an avatar like that.
    The siddhas were yogins who, after long years of practice, had developed one or more of the miraculous powers. It was the siddhas who created and controlled the avatars, studied the yantras and learnt to smelt sattva. But they guarded their secrets closely – few Europeans, or even Rajthanans, knew much about them.
    Jack, however, knew more than most. After all, he was, in a sense, a siddha himself.
    The avatar grumbled past, the scent of coal and sattva wafting about it, the chains along its sides snapping tight as it hauled a covered wagon. Soon it disappeared into the grainy murk up the road, the wagon trundling behind.

    A bank of grey cloud rolled across the sky. Raindrops began to spatter the ground, the cart, Jack’s head. Jack stood and leant against the mound of cabbages as the cart bumped along the road. Ahead, through the thickening drifts of rain, he saw the wall of the Goyanor estate. The red towers at the top of the house peeked out above the dark-green trees surrounding the property.
    The cart pulled up at the gate and he jumped to the ground. His tunic was wet and heavy, and the wound in his chest ached. All he could think about was crawling into bed.
    He banged on the gate.
    The slot opened and Edwin’s face appeared. ‘Who’s there?’
    ‘It’s me – Jack.’
    ‘Well, now. Could be an intruder. How can I be sure?’
    ‘Open the gate, you bloody idiot.’
    Edwin swung the gate open and stood there in a long cloak, his hair drenched and coiling into his eyes. He smiled cheekily. ‘Afternoon, Master Casey.’
    Jack sighed and smiled back. Edwin wasn’t a bad lad. He would come right in the end.
    And suddenly Jack found himself hoping for the best for the boy, hoping for his safety in a future that seemed to be darkening every day.

2

    J ack sat cross-legged in his small room, staring straight ahead. A couple of sticks of incense burnt in a holder on the floor, the smoke filling the room and making his head swim. Morning light slipped under the door and through cracks in the walls, but otherwise the room was in fuzzy darkness.
    He took a deep breath. His thoughts were racing today.
    ‘Your mind is like a rippling pool.’
    Basic yoga training. He remembered sitting with the other men on the parade ground as the drill sergeant took them through the meditation.
    ‘Sit down, men. Cross your legs. Back straight. Hands on knees. Focus on the standard.’
    The regimental standard – three red lions running in a circle on a blue back ground – was always strung up before them during yoga practice.
    ‘Focus on the standard, men. Don’t let anything else into your head.
    ‘Now close your eyes. Keep them shut. Anyone opening their eyes will be on the end of my boot.
    ‘Keep the standard in your mind. Keep every detail of it there. Don’t let your thoughts jump.
    ‘Your mind is like a rippling pool. Still it.’
    But today Jack found it hard to calm his thoughts. He tried to concentrate on the standard, but images and memories flickered in his head . . .
    Elizabeth standing in the snow last Christmas, waving goodbye as he pulled away on the back of the cart . . .
    Elizabeth, as a child, running towards him across a meadow, her