Jack scooped Ellini out of the bath, dried her off, and carried her into the adjoining tent, where the white bed—hung with its canopy of mosquito nets—was beckoning.

She was eager for him, in her distracted way. She closed her eyes and bit her lip and gave him little, sheepish kisses, when she wasn't muttering French phrases against his skin.

And he tried to take his time, tried to appreciate her properly, but those three weeks of separation were weighing down on him, making him breathless and shaky with greed.

When it was over, he collapsed on her breasts, glowing with contentment, and spent some time trying to persuade himself that nothing terrible would happen if he left the tent and went out to see the people who were waiting for him.

Eventually, he got up, struggled on with his clothes, and told Ellini to stop looking so pretty, because he had to go out. She pulled a face, but it didn't really help.

Jack sighed and swung his new-favourite rifle over his shoulder. "Well, thanks for trying, anyway. And, while I'm away, if you could try not to read, that would be equally appreciated."

Torches had been lit outside the tent. Here and there, along the dirt-track that led to the mess tent, Jack could see familiar faces, clustered around fires and forges, telling blood-curdling stories, or practising with their bayonets. He smiled at them vaguely and carried on, hoping that Brandt had succeeded in evicting most of his visitors.

As he passed the peepal tree that Ellini had been reading under a few hours before, a voice spoke to him from the shadows.

"I have the weapon that will destroy you, Sahib," it said. "I sell it to you for four rupees."

Jack stopped and peered into the shadows. There was a man under the tree, clutching a walking stick—at least, he supposed it was a man, although its face had a caved-in look from a serious lack of teeth, and it seemed to be well under the average human height. For a moment, Jack thought wildly of the dwarf in Sanjeev's story, and half expected this creature to balloon into a sky-pacing giant as soon as it was approached. But then he spotted the loincloth, the wispy grey hair, and the skin that was so cracked and mottled it resembled a Roman mosaic.

"Ah," he said. "Sadhu Vishwamitra, yes?"

Sadhu Vishwamitra didn't make any response to his name, so Jack went on patiently, "Have my men offered you a—" He took in the Sadhu's appearance, from the painfully bony limbs to the cool, almost pitying, look of inner peace in his eyes. He could think of lots of things the Sadhu lacked, but nothing that the Sadhu needed. "—drink?" he finished lamely.

"I have the weapon that will destroy you," repeated the Sadhu. "I sell it to you for four rupees."

Jack looked closer. The little man was holding up the walking stick for his inspection, and with a sudden jolt of recognition, Jack realized it was actually an arrow—not one of those small, lethal-looking crossbow bolts, but a proper, quivered arrow, of the sort that might have been fired from a medieval longbow. Its feathers were jet black. They shone greasily in the firelight.

Jack stared. There was something almost... familiar about it. And this, combined with the dark, and the Sadhu's strange, repetitive words, threw him off balance.

"Um," he said uncertainly. But the Sadhu didn't appear inclined to help him, so, once again, the silence descended. This time it seemed to Jack to be far more ominous than it was holy.

Something else was unsettling him too. Something to do with where he'd just been. It was too much. He'd been too happy. He couldn't help thinking there was going to be some terrible price.

"Why so cheap?" he asked, with an attempt at cheerfulness.

"I could sell it to your enemies for thousands," said the Sadhu. "And they would pay, Sahib."

"I'm sure," said Jack, who was starting to feel slightly at sea in this conversation. "But why do you think I'd want it?"

"To ensure that they do not have it."

"OK, but I don't exactly believe..."

The Sadhu's face turned kindly. "Destruction is not to be feared, Sahib. It paves the way for regeneration."

"Ye-es," said Jack slowly. "In the generality of things, I can see that that's the case."

"Generality is all there is, Sahib." The Sadhu gave him a gummy smile. There was one tooth in that face, sticking out of the old man's lower jaw like a pig's tusk. It was as stark and mesmerizing as the black arrow.

"But, if you wish to discuss specifics," the old man went on, "I can oblige you. Your name is Jack Cade. Born in Cheapside in London in 1850. Son of William Cade and Elizabeth Barrett, a dockworker and a good-natured piano teacher, from whom you inherited musical talent and nothing else. The little songbird died in childbirth, so you were raised by your father. He was a drunk, and he beat you. You had the same black eye for three years, because every time it started to heal, he would punch you again. It's the left one," he added, clearly mistaking Jack's astonished silence for a desire for more information. "It still hurts sometimes, in the cold weather. One of the reasons you love India so much."

"That's enough," said Jack, finding his voice at last.

"Destruction is good, Sahib. The dark is merciful. You know this," he said, proffering the arrow. "You know."

Jack tried to be calm. There was nothing in that short biography that the Sadhu couldn't have found out from reading the papers—or from the Lieutenant-governor, come to think of it. He kept detailed files on all his enemies, so that friends could be kidnapped, or relatives bribed.

Except the black eye. Jack had never told anyone about the black eye. Even his father probably hadn't noticed the black eye—because, lord knew, he hadn't been the most methodical meathead.

And the feathers on that arrow were mesmerizing. Black as Ellini's hair.

"Wouldn't you need some kind of bow to shoot this from?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light and conversational.

The Sadhu shook his head. "The blow will be delivered from up-close."

And that was it. That was all Jack needed to confirm his fears. For months now, he had been thinking—or trying not to think—about what would happen when Ellini got sick of him, or decided she wanted to be with someone else. He wouldn't be able to take it gracefully. He was going to turn into something like Robin.

Jack didn't suffer from anything that could be called humility. He knew he would be difficult to kill. And he knew what he was capable of—even if, up until now, he had been too plentifully supplied with hope and loved ones to stoop to it.

Ellini didn't think it was possible for him to turn out like Robin, but then, she was a very innocent girl—the kind of girl who would scoop up an eight-year-old boy and hold him to her chest, to prevent him from seeing his father's murder, and never dream that he might have been dying to see the bloated old bastard finally get what he deserved.

If there was a way to ensure that he died before he did too much damage—if there was a way to give Ellini a chance...

"Four rupees?" he said, because it seemed to be the touchstone of normality in this conversation.

"Four rupees," said the Sadhu, smiling his single-toothed smile. He held out the arrow for Jack to take, and added, "This, too, is the dark, Sahib. You must accept all its faces if you wish to be one of its children."