"The bastards killed my driver."
"The driver was nothing. A low caste." He shrugged it away. "You are an important feringhi. You would not have been harmed. You should never have drawn a pistol. And then you allowed yourself to be captured. It was an act beneath honor. The women spat on you and your horse when you were brought through the streets. I have no doubt they'll kill us both now."
"Who's left alive?"
"No one. My men died like Rajputs." A trace of pride flashed through his eyes before they dimmed again with sadness. "When they knew they could not win, that they had failed the prince, they vowed to die fighting. And all did."
"But you're still alive."
The words seemed almost like a knife in the Rajput's heart.
"They would not kill me. Or let me die honorably." He paused and stared at Hawksworth. "There was a reason, but it doesn't concern you."
"So all the men died? But why did they kill the drivers?"
"The drivers weren't killed." Vasant Rao looked surprised. "I never said that."
I keep forgetting, Hawksworth told himself, that only high castes count as men in this God-forsaken land.