Sounds of endless scratching filled the heavy, humid air as he started to pray, bowing three times before the statue of the goddess Lakshmi. After prayers, the Brahmin daubed their brows with sticky orange paste of saffron and ghee and pressed seven grains of rice onto each forehead to bring strength and prosperity.
Sachin had lost count of the grains of rice he’d had pressed into his brow. All the gemstone roughs they had picked from their dried and raked beds of gravel had been dark and muddy, yielding only a new turban and a few lengths of cotton.
Sachin and his family washed their hands and feet with water, before the Brahmin handed them their only meal for the day: a scoop of rice on woven sál leaves. This morning they were gifted a copper cup of warm ghee mixed with sugar and cinnamon to pour over the rice.
Sachin looked across to where Arjun was tethered to the nearest banyan tree, curled up asleep in the shade. This was their life now: working the mines for clear stones and yanking their prized son and brother to the pits like a belligerent goat.
The sun rose higher and the gravel started to grow warmer. Sachin moved quickly to stop the tips of his fingers burning. His throat turned dry. He struggled to swallow, and longed to plunge into the shallows of the Krishna River below.
Arjun lay moaning, hair plastered to his face.
Sachin scooped up a handful of gravel. He let it flow through his fingers, shaking his hands and watching for a hint of light. He did this over and over—until his skin was raw and chafed—before he caught a rough between his fingers. He rubbed the stone on his loincloth and held it up to the light. The guards had spotted him, and they moved closer to ensure he didn’t swallow it.
Sachin nodded, heart starting to race as the head guard produced a banyan leaf and held the stone against the leaf to check it ran clear, not blue. The boy craned for a look, but was given a swift kick and ordered back to work. The guard grinned and the rough was slipped into a leather pouch on his belt.
The rest of the guards made a wall behind Sachin, peering over him as he resumed sorting through the gravel, hoping for more …
Sweat dripped from his brow. If only he could sip some water. Or at least give some to his mother and sister.
Under the tree, Arjun started to stir. He stood and tugged at the twine that bound him to the tree.
The guards turned to watch, laughing. Arjun was nothing more than an amusement for them, like a dancing monkey at the bazaar.
Sachin swallowed, turning from the cruel scene, then spotted a glimmer in the gravel. He shifted sideways to throw a shadow and hide the stone.
Arjun started to moan and kick. He leaned back, breaking his twine, and then ran towards the guards. They left their positions behind Sachin and moved forwards to restrain him.
‘Shabdkosh! Shabdkosh!’
Devil.
A guard tackled Arjun to the ground and another grabbed his feet. A third pulled his pistol.
Sachin’s father appeared out of the pit and ran across to the guards, placing himself between the pistol and his eldest boy, hands in the air. He raised his voice, arguing with the head guard as the other two tied Arjun to the tree once more.
As his mother put down her basket and hurried over to soothe her son, Sachin crouched down, plucked the clear rough from the gravel and gasped. This stone was of the clearest water, glowing as if it housed a flame.
He stared, entranced. He’d never seen such a pure light.
Without even a touch of the polishing wheels spinning to the side of the pits, Sachin knew at once that the stone he held was special.
For the first time, he believed the Brahmin’s insistence that the Golconda stones were the most powerful of all. He clasped it in his fist, calling on the power of the stone, of the crown chakra, to protect his brother.
Behind him Arjun moaned and thrashed as Sachin’s mother cried out to the Divine Mother.
The head guard shouted a warning. Father turned to the thrashing Arjun, pleading with his son to be silent.
Sachin lifted his eyelid and slipped the rough into the corner of his eye then he turned and ran towards his brother. The stone scratched his eyeball and tears started to form but he wiped them away with the back of his arm. This stone would save them.
‘Arjun,’ Sachin pleaded as he moved closer to his brother.
Arjun’s hands were tied, and he kneeled with his feet bound behind him. His mouth was frothing with spit and his neck strained tight as he thrashed at the soldiers who were kicking and taunting him as if they were at a cockfight.
‘Stop!’ Sachin tried to throw himself between the soldiers and his kneeling brother, as his father had done before.
The guards kicked Sachin down into the dirt.
‘Shabdkosh!’ yelled the guard, and Arjun lunged for the man’s ankle and bit hard.
The guard threw his red face back and roared like a wolf.
Sachin felt the stone digging deep into his eyeball as he fell onto Arjun to protect him from another beating and their sweaty bodies wrestled together in the dirt.
The last thing Sachin heard was the shot of a pistol.
Once, then twice.
Chapter 6
KATE
LONDON, PRESENT DAY
‘Welcome to The Goldsmiths’ Company.’
A footman in Elizabethan pantaloons, white stockings and a red coat greeted Kate, checked her ID and handed her an elegant nosegay of rosemary, lavender, rue and a white rose wound in a circle and tied with a navy ribbon. She slipped the ribbon over her wrist and held it to her nose, inhaling the scent of the herbs as she crossed the marble foyer and strode up the grand staircase to the Livery Room.
It was like she’d entered a giant jewel box, with pink marble Corinthian columns, red velvet curtains set within golden arches and soaring moulded ceilings detailed with gold leaf. Four enormous crystal chandeliers set the room ablaze.
But the old-world formality was shattered by the beats being pumped out by a six-foot RuPaul-lookalike DJ in the far corner. The room seemed to spin, thanks to a slide show of antique rings, necklaces and brooches blown up and projected onto the walls at all angles.
Every June for the last decade, Shaw & Sons Jewellers had hosted the Bijoux Gala at The Goldsmiths’ Company—the fanciest guild in London, just a block from St Paul’s Cathedral—and it was a highlight of London’s summer season. Kate’s best friend and host, Sophie Shaw, had managed to transform her conservative family business into the jewellery house in London in less than a decade, with zero brothers or sons to help her.
Kate elbowed her way through the crowd of jewellers, aristocrats and some elegant Chinese billionaires—some she recognised as her own clients—sipping Krug underneath green archways of star jasmine and bougainvillea. Spying her friend, she grinned like a maniac and waved.
Sophie Shaw was wrapped in a hot pink sari, sported a new turquoise bob cut at an angle along her jawline and wore a tiny emerald nose stud. On catching sight of Kate, she returned the wave, grimaced and pointed at the next room, mouthing, ‘See you in there,’ before miming sculling a glass of champagne. Some things never changed.
Among the crowd walked actors dressed in golden silk skirts and suits. The men wore white ruffs at their wrists and necks, and genuine longswords at their hips. The women’s bodices were so tight Kate worried a perky breast might pop out from the corsetry at any minute. Fashioned onto these Elizabethan costumes were pieces from Sophie’s latest collection. Chunky emerald rings were stitched into the neck ruffs, angular gold brooches sat at the breast, and long swathes of gold chains and pearls were strung over shoulders and swung down to waists. It was contemporary jewellery worn as in the seventeenth century, when Queen Elizabeth I’s ships ruled the seas. The women’s earlobes sparkled with an assortment of modern gold hoops and diamonds, and the black-clad bodyguards standing in every corner looked nervous.