The sound did not announce itself.
It slipped into the morning like breath held too long—grain sliding into cloth, dry and patient, a whispering fall that carried no anger and no mercy. Raghuveer heard it before he saw anything, and the sound lodged itself beneath his ribs like a splinter.
No temple bell rang.
Bhairav Malik's men did not ask for attention. They moved through the village with sacks already open, boots steady, eyes flat. Each door received the same knock: once, hard. A pause. Then entry.
From the first house, grain was taken.
Not counted aloud. Not negotiated.
A soldier plunged his arm deep into a storage pot, scooped, poured. Again. Again. The sack swallowed the grain greedily, its mouth yawning wider each time. When the woman of the house cried out—just once, sharp and instinctive—the soldier did not look at her. He tied the sack with practiced hands and marked the door with charcoal.
Next house.
Next pot.
Raghuveer stood at the edge of the courtyard, unable to move. The red thread at his wrist pressed into his skin as if warning him not to interfere. He felt his body weaken in that familiar way, a hollowness spreading behind his breastbone, but he remained upright. Falling would not stop this.
By the third house, people understood.
This was not a share.
This was removal.
Men began standing in doorways with their arms folded—not in defiance, but in containment, as if holding themselves together. Women stopped pleading. Children were pulled indoors before they could ask questions.
At one house, a farmer grabbed the rim of the pot as a soldier reached in.
"Leave enough," the man said. His voice cracked once and steadied. "That's seed grain."
The soldier paused. Looked at him for the first time.
Then scooped again.
The sack grew heavy. The pot went light.
The farmer did not shout. He sat down slowly on the floor beside the empty vessel, hands resting on his knees, staring at dust.
Raghuveer's breath caught.
Seed grain.
Not food for today. Food for the year to come.
Behind Bhairav's men came Zafar Khan's clerks.
They did not carry sacks. They carried boards, papers, pens. Their shoes did not crunch grain; they stepped around it carefully.
"How many live here?" one asked, voice calm.
The answer was written down.
"How much land?"
Written.
"How many oxen?"
Written.
At one house, a clerk asked a woman how many children ate from her hearth. She answered, then hesitated.
"And the old one?" the clerk asked, glancing toward a corner where an elderly man lay coughing.
"Yes," she said quietly. "He eats too."
The pen scratched.
Nothing was crossed out.
Raghuveer watched the village split into two kinds of suffering.
One was loud but brief—the shock of loss, the emptiness of pots, the sack disappearing down the lane.
The other was silent and permanent—numbers that would return next year, and the year after, long after today's hunger had been forgotten by those who caused it.
By midday, most houses had been visited.
The sacks stood in a row beneath the banyan tree, swollen and tied, their weight undeniable. Raghuveer could tell by their number and fullness that this was not a quarter taken, nor even half.
This was most.
Seventy. Maybe eighty percent.
Enough to survive today.
Not enough to endure.
A boy ran past Raghuveer clutching a small bowl wrapped in cloth. His mother hissed at him to hurry. A soldier saw and did not follow.
Bhairav's men were not concerned with scraps. Hunger would do the rest.
When the sun tilted westward, a man broke.
Not loudly.
An elder—one who had survived bad monsoons and worse taxes—stood near the sacks, counting silently on his fingers. His lips moved.
After a while, he spoke to no one in particular.
"Six weeks," he said. "Then we sell tools. After that… we leave."
No one contradicted him.
That evening, fires burned lower.
In one house, a woman tore a single roti in half. She handed the larger piece to her child and turned away, pretending to eat from the empty pan. The child chewed slowly, eyes fixed on her back.
In another house, a man drank water and said he was full.
No one believed him.
Raghuveer moved among them quietly, offering nothing but presence. He felt each empty pot like a bruise on his own body. The discipline he had taught—wake early, clean without being told, help without asking—had made them orderly.
Orderly villages were easy to strip.
That thought settled in him like ash.
At the temple courtyard, Zafar Khan's head clerk approached Raghuveer again.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Raghuveer."
"What is your father's name?"
Raghuveer answered.
The pen paused.
"What is your occupation?"
"I teach children."
The clerk looked up now. Not suspicious. Curious.
"What do you teach?"
Raghuveer thought of silent walking. Of straight backs. Of shared labor.
"Attention," he said.
The clerk wrote something shorter.
By nightfall, the sacks were loaded onto carts.
The ropes creaked as they tightened. Wood groaned under weight. The sound echoed through the village, settling into walls and bones.
A paper notice arrived before the carts left.
It bore Zafar Khan's seal.
Households had been recorded. Capacity assessed. Future dues would reflect "accurate figures."
The grain taken today was not mentioned.
The sarpanch read it once. His hands shook.
"They will come again," he said. "This was only the first writing."
Later, when the village lay quiet in the exhausted silence that follows disaster, Raghuveer sat alone near the temple pillar. His body ached as if he had been beaten, though no hand had touched him.
A messenger came softly and placed a letter in his palm.
The string was familiar.
His father.
Raghuveer waited until the man left before opening it. The paper smelled of smoke and long roads.
The first lines were ordinary. Concern. Health.
Then—
There is talk from Bengal, his father wrote. A battle near Plassey. They say the Nawab lost, but not by force alone. Some of his own did not fight. They were paid to stand still.
Raghuveer closed his eyes.
Company traders were there, the letter continued. They did not rule by sword. They ruled by agreement. Gold moved faster than armies.
Raghuveer saw it clearly now.
Not a battlefield soaked in blood.
A table. Papers. Men deciding the fate of thousands without lifting a blade.
Be careful where numbers are written, his father warned. What is counted can be taken again.
Raghuveer folded the letter slowly.
Outside, a cart shifted. Grain settled inside a sack with that same dry whisper. The sound returned to him, complete now.
Grain falling.
Hope leaving.
The future being weighed.
He pressed the letter to his chest and counted his breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
The village slept hungry.
And somewhere far away, men were already deciding how much more it could endure.