He and his crew moved through the canal belt like rumours on legs: seen from the corner of an eye, heard as a twig snapped and then gone. Their feet knew which paths held soft dust, which had betraying gravel.
Ratan Singh's dera slept heavily, confident in walls and reputation. A single lantern burned by the gate; two of his men sat on charpoys, rifles across their knees, heads nodding.
Madhu's men did not creep up like thieves. They came in a low rush.
One blanket thrown over the lantern and the world went dark. A boot against one guard's wrist sent the rifle spinning into the dust. A knee in another's stomach folded him before he could shout.
No swords flashed, no throats were cut. They hit with fists, with the flat of sticks, with the sort of restrained brutality men learn in village wrestling pits. Bones would remember in the morning. Lives would not end.
Inside, dogs barked, then yelped as someone threw them scraps to distract them. A door slammed. Ratan Singh came out in a nightshirt and turban, shouting.
"Who is there? Do you know whose house this is? I am—"
Madhu stepped out of the darkness and answered him with a punch that split his lip.
"Tonight," he said, "you are just a man who thought the jungle only bites in one direction."
They did not drag him inside for privacy. They took him out.
When the brief storm in the yard was done, Ratan and half a dozen of his armed men were tied hand and foot on bullock carts and pulled to the edge of the village square. The horns of the bullocks clacked softly; the ropes creaked.
Doors opened. Lanterns came out. Faces peeked.
"Stay inside," one of Madhu's men called. "No one touches your women. We are not here to raid you. We brought your protector home."
They tied Ratan and his men to the banyan tree in the centre of the square, ropes looped around trunk and limbs. No gags. No bags over heads. Only bruises, ropes, and the cold of the dust beneath them.
Ratan spat blood.
"Who sent you?" he demanded. "Which bastard zamindar is behind this?"
Madhu bent close, just enough for Ratan to smell sweat and tobacco.
"The same people," he murmured, "who's favorite girl you taken"
He said loud enough so people in homes listen.
"If anyone asks," he called to the houses around, voice pitched to carry, "tell them: Ratan Singh keeps brave company. But tonight, even his brave men went to sleep with their boots off."
A few nervous laughs escaped from doorways despite themselves.
"Remember," one of Madhu's men added, "no one touched your grain. No one touched your daughters. We tied only the men with rifles and sticks."
"Why?" someone dared to ask from the shadows.
Madhu did not answer.
He simply turned and walked away.
The granary work was quieter.
Ratan's headmen kept the main store locked, but locks meant little to men who had watched officers and zaildars open warehouses their whole lives. A few blows from a crowbar, a shoulder against wood, and the door gave way with a groan.
They did not empty it. Madhu counted sacks under his breath, then waved a hand.
"Take this row. Leave the rest. He must have something to scream over, but not enough to starve his tenants."
Bullocks snorted as they were harnessed. Carts groaned under weight.
On the road to Hayat Khan's land, they did everything wrong on purpose.
A wheel was dragged briefly through a patch of soft earth to leave deep grooves. One man let his distinctive Ratan Singh-style pagri cloth catch on a karkhanda bush and tear; he left the torn strip fluttering.
At a bend near the canal, someone "accidentally" dropped a jute sack. Grain spilled in a neat arc towards Hayat's boundary wall. They left it lying there, half-torn, Ratan's grain mark visible in the lantern light.
Bilal would have approved. Even an idiot darogha could follow this trail, he would have said. Perhaps even a clever one.
At Hayat's barn, they worked faster.
The outer wall was cracked in one spot; bullocks could be coaxed through the gap with a bit of pressure. The barn door itself was not even locked—Hayat trusted his own reputation more than wood.
They stacked Ratan's sacks at the back, behind Hayat's stock, just enough to be unmistakable to anyone who looked closely. A familiar quality of burlap, a different seal on the cloth.
"Leave his own seal in here somewhere," Madhu said. "On top."
One of his men pulled a branded wooden tally-stick from his belt—the sort used by Hayat's grain accountant to count deliveries. Madhu had acquired it through channels earlier; now he dropped it between the stacks like a calling card.
"Done," he said simply.
They left the way they had come: through cracks, through shadow, through the knowledge of where dogs slept and where watchmen drank.
The night closed behind them.
Dawn brought the shouting.
In Ratan Singh's village, women came out with brass pots and scarves pulled tight, only to find their zaildar and his bravest men swaying gently from the banyan like overripe fruit, ropes creaking as they tried to straighten themselves.
Somebody laughed. Somebody gasped. Nobody moved to untie them until Ratan's own steward arrived, panting, with a knife and a flood of curses.
By mid-morning the news had outrun any horse: Ratan Singh, beaten and trussed up like a goat in his own square. His men bruised and stumbling. His lip swollen. His temper wild.
The darogha from the nearest thana arrived before noon, moustache bristling, boots pinching in the dust. He listened with his usual half-bored politeness, took perfunctory notes, and promised "swift action".
Then someone mentioned that sacks seemed to be missing from the granary.
He went to count.
He frowned.
He swore that there had been more.
He followed cart tracks out of habit, more to show diligence than from any real expectation. The grooves led towards the canal.
At the bend near Hayat Khan's boundary, he stopped dead.
"What is this?" he muttered.
A half-torn jute sack lay by the path, marked with Ratan's seal, grain spilled from it in a neat stream pointing toward Hayat's field wall like an accusing finger.
The darogha scratched his head.
"This is… very unfortunate," he said.
Behind him, a constable shifted uneasily. "Sahib, maybe… maybe someone stole the sacks and… and took them to—"
"I can see that," the darogha snapped. "I am not blind."
He followed the trail into Hayat's yard.
Hayat, forewarned by gossip, met him at the gate with wounded dignity.
"This is an insult," Hayat declared. "How dare anyone suggest—"
The darogha walked past him into the barn.
Two stacks of sacks. One with Hayat's usual mark. One, further back, with Ratan's. A branded tally-stick bearing Hayat's seal lay on top, half-buried in burlap.
The darogha stared.
He did not like Ratan Singh. He did not like Hayat Khan. He liked neat reports and steady bribes and as little paperwork as possible.
This was going to be a great deal of paperwork.
"Explain this," he said wearily.
Hayat blustered. Ratan arrived, bandaged and furious. Accusations flew.
"You hired men to ruin me," Ratan shouted.
"You planned this to destroy me in front of the Government!" Hayat shouted back.
The darogha listened to them both for a while, then shut his notebook with a snap.
"I will write," he said curtly, "that Ratan Singh was attacked by unknown persons. That sacks bearing his mark were found in Hayat Khan's barn under suspicious circumstances. That both parties accuse each other. That further inquiry is required."
He looked at them both with tired contempt.
"And in the meantime," he added, "I suggest you stop speaking of law and order as if either of you know what those words mean."
At Sandalbar, Jinnah read the first rough report that evening.
Ahmed brought it in, still frowning from the ride back from town.
"So," Jinnah said mildly, "Ratan Singh was tied to a banyan tree."
"Yes," Ahmed said shortly. "And half his men. It looks like bandit work, but not the usual sort. No one dead. No house burned. No women touched. Just bruises and… theatre."
"And Hayat Khan's barns?" Jinnah asked, eyes not leaving the paper.
Ahmed's frown deepened.
"Full of sacks marked with Ratan's seal," he said. "And a trail so clumsy even that idiot darogha could find his way from one to the other."
He hesitated.
"It smells wrong," he said. "Not like random jungle. Like… a message."
Bilal's voice was almost amused. Your captain of order is not a fool. He can smell script when he steps in it.
"Indeed," Jinnah said calmly. "Any injuries serious?"
"Bruises. A few cracked ribs, perhaps. Their pride took more damage than their bones." Ahmed exhaled. "I will say this: whoever did it had discipline. No broken villagers. No burnt sheds. Just two very proud men made to look foolish."
"We live in interesting times," Jinnah observed.
Ahmed watched him.
"You think this will help us?" he asked. "Or make them more dangerous?"
"Both," Jinnah said. "They will howl to the Government that they are victims now. That the jungle is out of control."
He folded the report neatly.
"Let them howl," he added. "For once, they are not the only ones who can point to bruises and say, 'See? We are not safe either.'"
When Ahmed had gone, the room quieted again.
You enjoyed that, Bilal said quietly.
Jinnah did not deny it.
"I enjoyed symmetry," he said. "For every burnt loom and stolen girl, a small reminder that the chain between jungle and haveli is not invisible."
You also just taught Madhu that you are willing to use him like a scalpel, Bilal warned. Scalpels sometimes proved they would rather be swords.
"Yes," Jinnah said softly. "That is another debt I will have to pay, one way or another."
He stood and walked to the window.
Outside, the canal glimmered in the last light. Somewhere beyond those fields, two zaildars were shouting at each other, and a bandit was sitting under a tree, listening to the wind.
Sandalbar, for the moment, sat in the middle, very still.
Trying to pretend it could balance law and jungle on the same thin line.