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noticed, their eyes wandered to the men bringing the council members steaming tea and plates of clove loaf.
    He pitied them, to be seen by their women this way.
    One at a time, Britishers emerged from the dankness to approach the dais. They presented their wants. Rights to their neighbor’s well, levies on tobacco imported from further than twenty five miles to Ceylon’s markets, news of growing unrest in Madurai and whether the directors might impose a limit on servants brought in from that part of the country. “They bring able backs, but contempt for their betters,” an aggrieved man said.
    The directors sat at a long table under another Company flag. Though they listened, decisions seemed to come from one man, Governor Andrew Wynfield. He cut a robust figure, with broad shoulders and a piercing glare that he trained to imposing effect upon those who stepped forward. The other men seemed older, heavier, trapped by their station. This man was stronger than they were.
    One director sat away from the others. His head was bathed in waning light from the ring of windows above him. He held a thick woolen overcoat tightly under his chin, like a blanket. His free hand stroked a beard of brambles and moonlight. A beggarly old lion. The Governor leaned to whisper to him after each solicitation.
    Swaran got up and slowly descended towards the dais. Those conducting the business of the rich paid him no attention as he passed.
    Eligius felt a guilty wave of embarrassment for his father. They’d walked a long way. The brown stain of Ceylon’s mud roads covered him. His clothes were festooned with leaves and windborne dust that clung to the soft cloth like gray rain clouds.
    Swaran approached a lectern. His bearing was regal despite the barely disguised mirth his appearance provoked among the colonials.
    â€œYou must be Swaran Shourie.” The governor read from a document. He held up a hand, silencing the room. “You have
asked for the floor and it is yours, though only for a moment. We are about to adjourn.”
    â€œI am here by right of the people,” Swaran said. “The southern provinces and all their villages, Wynfield sa’ab.”
    â€œBy right?” Governor Wynfield smiled. “Was there an election I should be aware of?”
    â€œThere are issues you should be aware of, sa’ab. Matters more pressing than where your servants come from.”
    â€œYour tone, sir.”
    â€œOn behalf of Ceylon, I ask for leniency on the lagaan. The tax. I have studied the charter by which the Court and the Company gained sovereignty, and I believe the tax exceeds its bounds. I have the citations to your laws.”
    Wynfield’s smile had not left him, yet something within it hardened like pottery in an artisan’s kiln. “We have been over the same laws. It is a closed matter.”
    â€œThere must be an open forum, sa’abs. The Charter is to be renewed for another twenty years. It cannot be, not as it stands.”
    One of the directors leaned forward. “Speak of it in the proper way, Swaran. It is a matter of respect, or else say nothing.”
    Eligius saw his father’s hands tremble.
    â€œYour Zamindari system forces us to grow only what you need,” Swaran pressed on, “with seed we are forced to buy from you. Your lagaan takes us into debt, so we cannot afford to sow the fields. Having nothing to grow, we have nothing to sell and no way to pay this tax. Our markets are full of Indians bartering scraps of themselves to each other while we lose our lands.”
    â€œI have little sympathy.” Wynfield held out his teacup and waited. In an instant, a Tamil servant stood at his side, refilling it. “Ceylon’s poverty was a matter of record long before we accepted stewardship, at no small expense of the Crown’s time and capital. Your people are free to work and raise the money to address their arrears. The fields afford them such